“I don’t really know how to describe myself anymore.”

A public sector leader said this to me recently.

On paper, they were incredibly accomplished. Years of leadership experience. Strategy. Stakeholder management. The kind of person others look at and think: “They’ve built such a successful career.”

But psychologically? They felt lost.

Because the career story they had told themselves for many years no longer fitted. And they hadn’t built a new one yet.

I think this is one of the least talked about parts of career change.

People think career transition is mainly practical: Updating your LinkedIn profile. Networking. Looking at options. 

But at some point, career change becomes something much deeper: Identity work. 

Who am I now?
What still fits? What no longer does?
And how do I make sense of my experience in a way that supports where I want to go next?

So today, I want to talk about how to begin rewriting your career story in a way that is grounded, honest, and actually useful.

I’ll share 2 of the 7 questions I use with clients inside my 5-month Find Your Career Space programme.

Why Career Story Matters for Public Sector Leaders Considering their Next Move

As humans, we naturally make sense of our lives through stories. Psychologists call this “narrative identity.” 

We create meaning by connecting experiences together into a coherent picture of who we are. And during major transitions, that story often gets disrupted.

This is true especially for public sector leaders. Because your identity may have been deeply tied to your:

– expertise
– achievement
– institutional credibility
– being the reliable one
– responsibility
– service for the public good

When you start questioning whether you still want to keep doing the same thing for the next 10, 15 or 20 years, or when you feel ready for something different but don’t know yet what exactly that is, that can feel deeply unsettling. 

It’s not that you’re incapable of change. Quite the contrary! You’ve been through a lot of change already. But this change is different. Because your old story no longer explains your future.

The Trap Many Public Sector Leaders Fall Into

What often happens at this stage is that people unconsciously start telling themselves stories that keep them stuck. Things like:

“I’m too specialised.”
“I’ve invested too much to change now.”
“I wouldn’t know how to position myself outside government.”
“I need to know exactly what comes next before I make any move.”

But here’s what’s important to understand: Those are interpretations. Not objective truths.

A career story is not a fact. It’s a lens. And some lenses keep you trapped inside an identity you’ve already outgrown.

Now, I want to make an important distinction here:

Rewriting your story does NOT mean rewriting history. 

It’s not pretending everything you’ve accomplished didn’t happen. It’s not trying to turn every experience into a beautiful life lesson. And it’s not denying frustration, disappointment, or burnout.

It’s about changing the interpretation. 

Looking at your career differently. Extracting meaning more intentionally. Connecting the dots in a way that helps you move forward. Instead of staying psychologically anchored to an old version of yourself.

It’s very hard to build a meaningful new narrative
until you’ve gathered evidence about who you are now.

That’s why this is one of the later stages inside my 5-month Find Your Career Space programme.

First, we work through these 4-steps together:

Only then do we begin consciously rewriting your career story in a way that genuinely fits your next chapter.

Because confidence doesn’t come from just thinking positively, though that helps. It comes from lived experience, evidence, clarity, and self-trust.

Two Questions That Help Leaders Rewrite Their Career Story

Let me walk you through 2 of the 7 questions I use with clients inside my 5-month Find Your Career Space programme once they’ve already done some reflection and career experimentation work.

These questions are powerful because they help people move beyond job titles and reconnect with the deeper patterns underneath their career.

You might want to pause this episode to get pen and paper – or you can journal on these later.

So here’s… 

Question 1: What parts of yourself became smaller in order to succeed?

This question can be surprisingly emotional.

Because many public sector leaders have spent years adapting themselves to fit professional expectations.

Maybe you became:

– less creative
– less outspoken
– less ambitious
– less visible
– less playful, or
– less honest about what you really wanted

Maybe parts of you slowly disappeared in the process of being “professional.”

And career transition can become an opportunity to reclaim some of those parts.

Question 2: What evidence have your recent experiments given you about what fits you now?

This is where reflection becomes grounded in reality. Because career clarity doesn’t come from thinking alone.

It comes from experimenting, testing and trying things out. Exploring new environments, projects, courses. Volunteering. Having conversations.

And often those experiences reveal something important: you have evolved.

One of the biggest fears people have during career change is: starting from scratch.

But most of the time, that’s not entirely true. You are not abandoning your past. You are integrating it in a new, different way. 

Your career is not just a list of jobs. It is evidence.

Evidence of:

– what matters to you
– how you contribute
– what environments help you thrive
– what strengths you bring with you
– what kind of impact feels meaningful

And when you begin interpreting your experiences differently, new possibilities become visible.

How Do You Interpret Your Experience?

Here’s something I’d love you to reflect on this week: Your career story is not fixed. The meaning you give your experience matters.

So ask yourself:

Until next time: make space, rediscover YOU, and then take action.

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TOPIC: Design Your Next Career Move, Envision Your Possible Future