India, April 21 -- Ask any civil servant what success looks like, and the answer usually follows a familiar script: key postings, steady upward movement, a few major assignments, and finally, retirement at the top of the service. That version of success is neat. It's visible. It photographs well.
But speak to enough officers - across batches, services, and stages - and a quieter truth emerges: you can have all the markers of success and still not feel it. You can feel deeply fulfilled in a post that no one has ever called
"significant." That gap between what success looks and feels like is real. And learning how to close it is one of the most valuable skills a civil servant can develop.
A 2020 study in the Journal of Positive Psychology ...