Inner Purpose Podcast

When Success Feels Empty: Reclaiming Purpose at Work with Anita Čavrag (Part 1 of 3)

• Michelle Dowker • Season 2 • Episode 26

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Have you ever hit a wall in your successful career and wondered, “Is this really all there is?” In this first part of a profound three-part series, I sit down with purpose-driven coach Anita Čavrag to explore the rich and often misunderstood terrain of meaning, passion, and purpose at work.

Anita shares her journey of leaving a prestigious but unfulfilling career in HR to pursue coaching, and we dive deep into why so many high-achievers feel empty despite outward success.

We unpack the subtle but powerful differences between passion and purpose, how to spot a work identity crisis, and the real reasons why that “spark” might feel like it’s missing.

This episode is for anyone who’s ever questioned their professional path and craves more meaning in what they do. Anita brings thought-provoking insights and lived experience to the table, and this is just the beginning.

Key Topics Discussed:

  • The difference between passion and purpose in the context of career
  • Why success can sometimes feel hollow, especially in mid-career
  • The subtle emotional and existential signs of work misalignment
  • How language shapes our understanding of what we really want
  • The role of exemplars and social proof in expanding what we believe is possible
  • Practical steps to identify what’s truly missing from your work life

This is just the beginning of an enlightening series with Anita Čavrag. If you found value in this conversation, be sure to listen to parts two and three when they’re released. Anita and Michelle delve into the emotional, physical, and psychological toll of ignoring one’s purpose, and how to recognize the signs before burnout sets in.

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Disclaimer:
This podcast is for informational & inspirational purposes only. Nothing shared is intended as medical, psychological, or personalized advice, and should not be used as a substitute for professional support.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Inner Purpose Podcast. I'm so happy that you're here. So today's episode I'm interviewing a beautiful soul. Her name is Anita Chavrag. Anita is a coach for high achieving leaders and founders who've built impressive careers or businesses, but they feel unfulfilled and sense it's time for a profound change, even if they're not sure what they truly want, she helps them reconnect with who they really are, get clear on what would actually light them up, and design work that aligns with their purpose and their true nature. Her approach blends a master's in psychology, nlp, existential coaching, a decade-long career in HR and a lifelong obsession with the human mind, plus her own lived experience of walking away from a prestigious but stifling path to follow her true calling. We had a lengthy and deep conversation that was rich with so much magic. I've decided to separate our conversation into three different podcast episodes so that you can take in the richness and depth of each one on your own time and then come back for another level of depth with each of these three podcast episodes. I will link each of them in the show notes so that you can continue to listen one after another as you choose.

Speaker 1:

In this first episode, we're talking all about purpose and meaning. What's the difference between purpose and passion, and what are the things to consider about your work if it's not feeling purposeful right now. And then, in the second of the three episodes, we're talking about what happens if you don't actually follow your purpose. We talk about maybe some of the existential signs, and even physical health signs, that can occur when you're not actually following your purpose, when you're not actually understanding how you're designed or what optimal career is right for you, and, if you ignore those whispers, what that can turn into over time, especially if you are a highly sensitive or neurocomplex person. And then, in the final episode, we get deep into talking about reality. We talk about the filters of your unconscious mind and how they might be affecting how you're seeing your level of purpose, how you're understanding meaning, how you might be affecting how you're seeing your level of purpose, how you're understanding meaning how you might be seeing the options that are on the table and what to consider so that you can align yourself to your most purposeful work and feel deeply satisfied while doing it.

Speaker 1:

So this is a little overview of what to expect in these next three episodes. So let's get started with the first one now. I hope you enjoy. I'm so excited to have a chat with you today. Thank you for being on the podcast.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, Michelle, for having me. Yeah, my pleasure.

Speaker 1:

We've been having some really fun conversations about the crisis of meaning and purpose and authenticity and inauthenticity and how it's impacting things, especially nowadays, and Anita has some really amazing insights and perspectives that I'm super excited to hear more about and have you share with me and my listeners. So I want to open this up by asking you you know this, the crisis of meaning and purpose and inauthenticity. What does that mean to you? How would you?

Speaker 2:

describe that. Yeah, I think we live in the day and age when there's a lot of that going on. I feel like people, when they reach a certain level of success material success in their work, in their business or career they start thinking about you know, why am I doing all of this? What's the meaning of all this? Do I want to keep doing this? And I think this happens because when we satisfy our material needs, then the space opens for us to think about other needs that are more maybe subtle or emotional needs that we haven't been paying that much attention to all this time. That's when it becomes obvious that the work that we do perhaps doesn't align fully with our true nature, with who we want to be, with who we are, with our values. Yeah, just like our true nature.

Speaker 2:

And this is when I think a lot of people hit that spot, when they just lose a sense of meaning and purpose in their work.

Speaker 2:

It can also happen because of some disillusionment, like over time, you realize maybe that your job, the company you work for, or the whole industry is somehow corrupt or unethical and you just can't stand that anymore and your value system really starts shouting that this just doesn't sit right with you.

Speaker 2:

Right, when we are younger, first of all, we don't really always realize that it takes us a while to figure out how the world works and we don't know ourselves that well. And then, over time, as we gain this knowledge, we start to notice this discrepancy and it starts to bother us. And this is when, I think, a lot of people hit that midlife identity crisis. And I'm specifically interested in the work identity crisis, not just the whole general life, the cliche point when you want to just do something naughty buy a convertible or something but just like in your work life, when you reach that point when nothing makes sense anymore, you don't know who you are, you don't know what you want and you just feel a deep sense of misalignment and meaninglessness and you start questioning everything. Yeah, that's a very painful point in a lot of successful people's lives.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and my goodness, I have so many questions. First, actually, you know, just to backtrack, I'd love to know if you care to share a little bit of a summary of how you got to where you are now with the work that you do. What is the work that you do? A little bit of a story about you.

Speaker 2:

Oh yeah, thank you for asking that. Yeah, I've been thinking, you know, before our conversation, like how to summarize this without going into all the you know details about what happened to me. But what I just described is essentially what happened to me. I used to work in HR for about a decade and I reached the point when I was really successful on paper. I had a wonderful CV, I had a great position, I had a really good salary in a prestigious company, but something in me just felt empty and I just stopped believing that the work I was doing was actually making any meaningful difference. Not that it wasn't making a difference in the eyes of others, but that Not that it wasn't making a difference in the eyes of others but that kind of difference wasn't enough for me anymore. I just thought that I was wasting my time and my talents and my potential doing things that are kind of mundane or trivial or don't have a long lasting value. You know, like I bring some value and then it immediately gets destroyed. I hire people and then they quit or they get laid off or something like that. So it just felt like I'm wasting my life and it was unbearable To me.

Speaker 2:

That thought was unbearable, and I was never one of these people who wanted to change the world. I never really thought of myself as someone who needs to do big things. I didn't want to do big things. I just wanted to do something meaningful, even if it was on a small scale. And I couldn't find that in my work. And it wasn't about my company, because if I change my company, if I move to a different company, it would be the same because it's the same type of work.

Speaker 2:

My main problem wasn't with the environment or with the setup of my work. It was really with the work itself, and so I needed to reinvent my career. I needed to find a new direction, I needed to find a new profession, and that's how I ended up doing what I do. I was lucky enough to get a taste of coaching. I got certified for a coach and I experienced firsthand the power of coaching and I fell in love with that.

Speaker 2:

I realized I have this really powerful gift and I thought it would be a waste of my life if I didn't try to create a career out of it. And because I felt so passionately about this whole topic of meaning and purpose at work, or the lack of it, because that's what happened to me. I felt drawn to help other people find that true calling or a new calling. It doesn't have to be that the previous one was wrong, it's just it could be that they just outgrew it and now it's time for a new identity to emerge, a new path to unfold, and I felt really, really drawn towards doing that and helping other people go through the same process that I went through, but less painfully and more quickly than I did.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my goodness, that's so beautiful. Thank you, that sounds like that would likely be very meaningful for you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it is. It's the reason why I wake up in the morning. It's the reason why I can bear the hardship of entrepreneurship when you're just building your business and you don't know how it's going to go. And that gives me the strength to keep on going, because I believe in the importance of this work, that to me, that's the incredible power of not just finding your passion but finding really purpose, because I feel like passion can't really sustain you as much or as long as purpose true purpose can.

Speaker 1:

So what would you say?

Speaker 2:

the difference between those two are Well, passion is something that you're really interested in, something that really excites you. You lose yourself when you're doing that activity. You get into flow. And not to say that it's bad to have passion I mean, if you can do what you're passionate about, you're probably going to have a very exciting career. But I feel like there's too much emphasis on that passion. It's something you need to find. I think it's also something you need to cultivate, something that kind of finds you.

Speaker 2:

A lot of people stumble upon their passion. It can't be really found in a standard way like I'm going to find my passion now. It kind of finds you. It depends on your ability to kind of surrender yourself to new activities and allow yourself to fall in love with something, follow your interests. I think a lot of people don't even they can't really predict that something is going to become their passion until they've tried it. So I think it's a matter of you know, exploring things and allowing yourself to fall in love with something. I don't think passion alone can sustain you. If it's meaningless, if it doesn't create an impact that you think is important, then it can just be a hobby. We can be passionate about many things and not have that, as our profession, passion can also be exhausting, like if you're really passionate about your work, that can mean being on an emotional roller coaster.

Speaker 1:

So the extremes instead of finding a balance.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it can be really intense and I think that not every stage of life requires you to be passionate. Sometimes you just maybe have this period in life where you don't want to give all of yourself to your work, you don't want it to consume you, and there are periods when you do. There are periods, especially like when we are younger we like I think a lot of people like that feeling. I still like it. I like to be consumed by my work, but I can also imagine a different time in my life when you know other things like family will take priority.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, now what's the difference between passion and purpose? So you've given an overview of passion and how it can be wonderful and it can also be draining and it can be something that you can get lost in and maybe it's not the thing that's going to really keep you grounded and centered on an ongoing basis. So what would like purpose and meaning and impact the other? You know the other side of it. How would you define or describe that?

Speaker 2:

I would say that meaning and purpose is almost like the after effect. It's what you experience when you do work that you consider important. Of course you can have overlap. You can do passionate work that you deeply care about, the impact of which is really important to you, and so you have both passion and purpose. But you can also have just passion without purpose. Like I'm really passionate about drawing, but what's the purpose of that? I'm not making anybody's life better because I'm not a pro. I'm just doodling here on the paper just for my own pleasure, right?

Speaker 2:

You can also have purpose without passion. You can do meaningful work that you're just not excited about. You know on an intellectual level that it creates an important difference, but it's not the activities that you do. You're not passionate about them. Maybe you're passionate about the cause, so you really deeply believe in the cause of your work. Maybe you work for an NGO or something, but all day long you have to fill out spreadsheets and do admin work, and so you have a lot of purpose and you know that ultimately, filling out spreadsheets is going to lead to an outcome that you truly value and find important and that gives your life meaning.

Speaker 2:

But that's not really sustainable because you just don't enjoy doing it right. There's no passion for the work. So, yeah, these are very abstract concepts and there's a lot of overlap between them and it's hard to draw a firm line. This is the clean line where passion stops and purpose begins. I think they all kind of feed into each other. Yeah, but I just like to demystify these terms. I like to think about these words and the language that we use critically, because the language defines how we understand reality, how we understand ourselves, and so if we keep talking about purpose, but what we actually mean is, you know something else, or passion, and we actually mean purpose, you know, we ought to get confused.

Speaker 1:

If you were talking to somebody who had purpose but no passion, what would thoughts might you share with that person? They're working a purposeful job, but they're not feeling passionate about what they're doing.

Speaker 2:

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is I would look into what are they really passionate about? Right? Why is passion missing? I wouldn't really jump into advice before. I did like a deeper diagnosis of what's going on, because sometimes people say things but don't necessarily mean exactly what they said. So, for instance, like sometimes people say, oh, I lack confidence. And then when you dig deeper you realize it's not confidence that they lack, it's maybe that you know, they're a little bit afraid, but they're actually pretty confident. It's just that I don, they're a little bit afraid, but they're actually pretty confident. It's just that I don't know.

Speaker 2:

They use that word for some reason because it's available, but that's not exactly what they mean. So, you know, when spark is gone, like what does that really mean? Does it mean you're not interested in the work anymore? Does it mean that maybe you're just bored, maybe there's too much repetitiveness, maybe you're not challenged enough, maybe some emotional need is not being met, maybe you crave novelty, maybe you crave connection with people and you're not getting that. Maybe you're stuck at home, you're doing some kind of work that doesn't really excite you, but that's not a sign that you have permanently lost passion for your work and now you need to find a different line of work. Maybe it just means that you need to kind of do some adjustments, and I think a lot of people don't realize how much space they have to make adjustments at work. Of course there are some workplaces that are closed and closed-minded and you can't really diverge too much from your role, but a lot of people never even try, they never even have that conversation and say look, I really value working here, I believe in this work, but it's just I've been feeling stagnant lately, or I've been feeling kind of bored and unchallenged or realizing you know, what is it that I actually need? We are better at realizing what we don't want, what bothers us, what hurts, what's off, but we struggle sometimes to well often to articulate that in the form of what we want, and so we often come with a complaint. But there is no desire behind complaint, it's not expressed right, and there is always desire behind complaint, but we sometimes struggle to articulate it, and so we are just left with this feeling like, oh, I don't feel good at work, and then we use the most available word, which is oh, it's just, I lost that spark. There's no passion. Passion is a very common word, it's very often used, so we might grab that word. It's just I lost that spark. There's no passion. Passion is a very common word, it's very often used, so we might grab that word because it's available to us.

Speaker 2:

I think it's really important to dig deep and ask what does passion mean for you? What is so important about passion? Because when you start defining these terms, when you start unraveling, unpacking this language, you get to the bottom of what's really going on, what is actually wrong, and then I think you're in a better position to give advice or provide some guidance, before you actually know what's happening. Saying that you lost passion, that could mean so many things. Right, what is the particular flavor of that feeling? Where is it coming from? And then we can think about. You know what would be a good next step. But if we just take it at face value of lost passion, you know that doesn't really give us much to work with. I love that. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. I mean, you're speaking to somebody who's all about getting to the root of things right and understanding what's right what's really underneath that topical symptom or whatever, that feeling of feeling off.

Speaker 1:

And I love how you've mentioned like which, what flavor I use that type of terminology as well in terms of like you know what is the flavor of. You know this particular symptom for you, in terms of that root, and I'm hearing that a piece of that puzzle is understanding. You know not only what you don't want but what's important to you. What are your preferences, what are your needs, how are you designed? Like you've mentioned, some people really need connection with other people and if you don't understand that about yourself and maybe your job is lacking that, then you might feel like something's off and you might not recognize that oh, it's because I'm not connecting with people. And sometimes we just assume, like you've mentioned, that maybe it's just that I've lost that spark, but really what it is is that your particular need and accommodating your design are not being met.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. And you know you're a naturopath, you're a doctor, and you know you're a naturopath, you're a doctor, so you also know how you know. When a certain disease or disorder becomes very popular in the media, suddenly everybody's diagnosed with it or self-diagnoses with it because it's available, right, and so we tend to see the symptoms that everybody talks about and we put ourselves into those boxes. But it takes a little bit of you know, asking questions, curious questions and digging deeper to understand what's really going on.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, and I loved how you mentioned not everybody thinks about maybe even bringing this up and saying like I think I'm missing this and seeing how you can make adjustments in the workplace without leaving, without changing, to actually make sure that it does fulfill the needs and your design and your passions, so that it can feel both purposeful and passionate.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, I think, as I said, we're often more aware of what we don't want. But if you come to your employer, like your boss or your manager, whoever, and you say, oh, I don't like this, I don't like that, you know, you don't want to, nobody wants to sound destructive or like negative, you know. And so we, we keep that to ourselves. But that's because we don't really know what's on the other side of that. What's on the other side of complaint. What desire is there? Okay, I don't want this. I'm sick and tired of this. This is getting really annoying. I can't stand this. Okay, but what do I want instead? Defining that part is really, really difficult. I have a whole theory why that's difficult. I can share it if you want, but I think this is where most people get stuck. I personally get stuck there as well, and I need to do some deep inner work to articulate what it is that I desire.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's hard to see yourself right and to see maybe even what's possible when you don't know what's possible.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when you have all these stories in your head about what's possible, what's permitted, then you can't see outside of the realm of what you think is possible and what's permitted, right, and so you don't dare to desire things that fall outside of that spectrum because you don't want to be disappointed or it doesn't even occur to you that you could desire that. It's just too big for you right now, it's just too far away from what you're used to, from what feels normal or just possible, and so I think a big part of the work that you and I do is expanding people's container in which they operate, expanding the realm of what's possible to allow that other things are possible as well, and that, to me, that is the true transformation to start wanting differently, to allow yourself to want things that fall outside of the spectrum of what you think is permitted to you or possible for you.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm, I love that and you're totally right. It can completely change a paradigm to see what's outside of, maybe, what's been modeled to you, what you believe is possible, what you've been taught that you should want, and sometimes, if we haven't been offered other examples or possibilities, once they're offered to us and once we can actually see them, it can change a whole lot, can't it?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and I love that you bring up other examples, because sometimes we just lack social proof. We might even have a vague idea of what we want, but if you don't know anybody who does what you're dreaming about, it's hard to believe it's possible. And so I think it's really, really worthy to get outside of your circle, meet new people and figure out, like, look at what they do, meet people who do the things that you dream about doing, because they're going to be. They're going to give you that crucial social proof that it is truly possible. I'm not sure if I would be able to do this work if I haven't had the experience that I had, if I haven't met the people who are coaches, the trainers in my certification, who do this for a living, if I haven't experienced this powerful experience, I'm not sure if I would believe that something like that is possible for a person like me.

Speaker 2:

Before that, of course, I knew about coaching. The concept wasn't new, but it was just so vague and abstract and so unknown. Like how do you even begin? Like, who do you talk? Like what do you do? What's the first step to take? It's overwhelming right. So I think that's a really smart thing that anybody can do. Just get outside of your circle, expose yourself to people who do different things, especially people who do the thing that you are considering doing for a living.

Speaker 1:

Oh my gosh, I love that it makes me think of I recently wrote a post about this. Something that I learned when I was in naturopathic college is there's a term that one of my professors used and that is called exemplars. So exemplars can be you know he was using flower remedies as an example of exemplars like an example of balance and attuned note for you to attune to, and he also mentioned that exemplars can be people right, holding an example of what's possible and what might be balanced and for you so that you can see an example to live to, kind of like tuning a tuning fork or using a tuning fork to tune to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, now I'm just remembering all these, like from NLP, all these concepts of anchors, symbols, metaphors, all those are really powerful tools to help us kind of envision or embody the thing that we want to become. I'm just looking at that little Buddha behind you, right? How can you look at Buddha and not feel a sense of balance, or at least be reminded of a sense of balance and enlightenment, everything that Buddha stands for? So, yeah, just like we like to surround ourselves with items that represent something, it's really powerful to surround ourselves with people who represent possibilities that we strive for. I have this little ridiculous item here. This is a gigantic how do you call this in English? The thing for when you hang the ropes. You know, when you put the rope, you hang the clothes. I'm sorry, right, a clothespin, yeah, yeah, but it's a gigantic one and it's yellow and it just reminds me of playfulness. To me, that represents playfulness, and just having it on the table reminds me to take things a little bit less seriously.

Speaker 1:

I love that that is such a good reminder. I think that especially in our society, we don't connect enough to playfulness.

Speaker 2:

That's true, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So this is where the first of the three episodes finishes, because right after this comment, we ended up switching topics and, as a reminder, there are two more episodes where we continue this rich and beautiful conversation.

Speaker 1:

In the second of the three podcast episodes, we talk about what some of the signs and indications might be that maybe there's something to change or adjust, or whether or not we're actually aligned with our purpose, and that can include existential symptoms, emotional symptoms, physical symptoms, especially if you're a highly sensitive or neuro complex person and what to start to think about and pay attention to in order to turn that situation around for yourself.

Speaker 1:

And then, in the third podcast episode, we're going to get into all things reality in terms of how you're interpreting reality, the lens through which you're looking at things, and what all of that means in terms of your purpose, work and finding peace and happiness and satisfaction with what it is that you're doing. You can find the links to the other two podcast episodes in the show notes once they're published, and you can find all the information to learn more about Anita in the show notes. I've linked her website and how you can find her on social media. So I hope you enjoyed the first of the three conversations with Anita, and I hope you come back to listen to the rest and, as always, thank you for being here. Until next time, take care.