Imagine being told that you’re going to wear one coat and one coat only for the rest of your life. You have to choose carefully because you can’t change it later. Tough, right? It depends on how warm you need it to be and how smart or relaxed. That’s essentially what we’re asking each other to do when it comes to our identity. And that’s a hell of a lot more complex than a coat! To make it worse, most of us default to work defining our identities … which led me to ask myself a few years ago: is work my identity?

It suddenly struck me when someone at a recent party asked me what I do, just how much we identify with our jobs. Whilst work is very commendable, many of us have that as our only identity. But what about the other roles we play in life? What about other passions that might not be fulfilled at work? And what happens when we lose our jobs? We talk about balance but do we really know what we mean? Do you really know who you are? It took me some time to work out how to break away from the idea that work is my identity. I had lost myself in work and needed to learn who I was.

Why is this a Problem?

Of course our jobs have an impact on who we are. After all, we spend the majority of our time in our jobs. However, life is complex and there are so many sides to it. Some overlap and some don’t. I used to advise successful senior executives retiring and all of them wished they’d spent more time with their families. When people get to the end, it’s rare to hear someone saying they wish they’d worked more. In fact, it’s usually the opposite. A more common regret is that they wish they’d been true to their own values and purpose, rather than living as others expected them to. 

I don’t regret my career but when I look back, was engineering really my passion? Sure, I like to build and make things but my passion has always been animals from a very young age. Why did I shut that part of me away and pretend it wasn’t there? The expectations around me were so strong that, as a young teenager, it was difficult to avoid. And so I launched into a career that someone else had dreamt up for me. So many of us do this, often leading to an existential crisis later in our lives. I was lucky that mine came very early in my 20s, triggered by divorce. 

Life Triggers

Life events can be either hugely positive or devastatingly negative. The negative ones can often make us or break us. I look at something like moving to a new job in a new country on a new continent. It’s a life changing experience with ups and down. For me, it was a huge shift in thinking which deepened my personal growth. However, I’ve seen others fall into the depths of victimhood. Others cling onto the past or desperately look for what they consider their ‘norm’. These never truly open up to the experience and never really break away from their suffering. 

However, if we take these triggers of life as learning opportunities then they make us question what we believe in. What values do we uphold and what is the meaning of all of this? It is overwhelming and terrifying and it means connecting with our emotions which many societies do not encourage. We are taught to seek external gratification and to shut off our emotions because it’s weak to express them. We are taught to constantly achieve without time for quiet contemplation. 

So how can we leverage a trigger such as a new job or new promotion to value work but still honour our own personal identity? And to check in with ourselves – is work my identity?

1- Flow 

Hopefully you know that feeling when you’re completely absorbed in something and the world can collapse around you but you wouldn’t notice. Time is no longer a factor. You’re in the zone. I don’t mean like playing video games for hours because you feel numb afterwards. I mean a moment when you’ve been engrossed in an activity and felt good about it. This was something defined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and, according to positive psychologists, is something we should be looking for. Take a look at your life and identify those moments. What were you doing? What skills were you applying? Could you create more of these opportunities? The more flow we have then the happier we are.

2- Purpose & values 

It’s amazing how many of us live the life that society or our families tell us to. We often mask that feeling of emptiness with busyness. I know I did for years. But it’s scary to break away from the norm. It took me a few years of working on my values and purpose to find out what I wanted in life. Even once you’ve done the work, you need to really sit with them and feel them. Is this truly who you are? Meditating with the idea of your purpose and values and really feeling what they meant to me was key in helping me absorb them. Whilst that might sound obscure, our brains often need to process things from the conscious to the subconscious to truly believe something and to make sure it feels right.

3- Character Strengths

It’s likely that you enjoy what you’re good at, to be honest, it’s pointless trying to ‘work’ on your weaknesses. They’ll always be weaknesses- accept that. True, we need to make sure that they aren’t so bad that they stop us from moving forwards. However, let’s focus on strengths in order to find meaning in life by applying something we are good at to something we enjoy. There are many exercises out there, as I describe in one of my blogs about self-confidence. However, it’s important to note the difference between character strengths and skills strengths. A character strength is innate whereas a skill can always be learnt.  Once you’ve identified them though, it’s useful to summarise your strengths and passions in one sentence. Mine came out as “I live a life of balance and adventure by applying my curiosity and empathy to helping others” .

4- Ikagai

A beautiful tool that helps you see where you’re potentially lacking balance. It also helps you connect your passion with your profession and link them together with your purpose in the world.

5- Letter from your Future-self

This is a great exercise. It is often best done after meditation so as to clear any unwanted thoughts. The more you connect with the present then the easier it is to feel who you are rather than getting caught up in the waterfall of thoughts.

Imagine yourself in 1 to 5 or 10 years’ time, whatever feels right to you, and write yourself a letter. How do you see yourself in the future? What are you proud of? What advice would you give yourself today? Overall, it’s both a therapeutic and motivating exercise. And then you can read it again in a few months and check in with how you feel about yourself. Who are you? Are you one step closing to defining your identity? It’s an ongoing process that never ends but enjoy the journey, including the twists and stumbles, and be curious about the self-discovery.