Is Your Work Your Identity?
Part 2 of a Series on Identity
In my last piece, “Losing My Identity”, I outlined some of the issues with cultural paths toward self-identity. Focusing on the Western culture, I identified some of the traps we can fall into including: internal inconsistency, good things becoming ultimate things, and the fact that self-identity has no validation. In my personal journey, I have made it a priority to dive deep into the identities that I have built my life upon to understand them and to not be held captive to a crisis in their potential (and, actually, inevitable) loss.
One major source of self and worth over the last two decades has been my identity as a female entrepreneur and business leader. I believe the foundation of this identity began through the input of watching my entrepreneurial and very successful father provide for and lead our family of seven children through his hard work and dedicated leadership. After working his way to CEO and Chairman in partnership with an international commercial real estate company, his example provided a very strong case for the worth of such an identity. No matter what ups and downs he experienced – poor health, bad economies, failed partnerships, etc. - he always persevered and remained extremely valuable in my eyes for the leader and business man that he was. He was MUCH more than this in my eyes, but his example as a business man is where I can identify the beginning of my placement of extreme value in work.
At 14, I began modeling and I earned an income from that point on. I was hooked on the self-sufficiency and power that came along with being a “business”. At 20, I was studying for my undergrad degree at NYU while working full time at a hospitality company. By 27, I started my own business and, at 29, I merged my business with an international partner. Fast forward to 37 and my identity as a businesswoman was iron clad like a mountain that couldn’t be threatened. Even through the identity crisis of becoming a mother and the intense dissonance that placed within me, I remained loyally dedicated to my work identity to the point of major personal sacrifices. I cover many of the other influences in other content such as a relentless culture, workaholism, imposter syndrome, and unhealthy professional relationships, but the identity I created was of my own building even if it was highly influenced by my culture and environments. The fact that my career was my masterpiece made it even more concrete and more valuable in my mind. There was a lot of sweat, blood and tears to justify my death-grip on this identity.
THE DANGER OF IDENTITY IN WORK
Truthfully, the line between me and my work became blurred - even nonexistent. There is a term that psychologists use to describe this: “enmeshment”. Enmeshment is when a person’s boundaries with other people (or a career) become blurred, and individual identities lose importance. It prevents the development and existence of a stable, well-rounded, independent sense of self.
Most leaders or individuals with high achieving personalities and intense competitiveness in a culture of overwork become enmeshed with their careers and risk burnout. It isn’t bad to identify closely with your work, but, without awareness, it does open the possibility of a painful identity crisis in the event of being fired or retirement. Subsequently, this opens the risk for these individuals to suffer anxiety, depression, and despair. Psychologists realize that this all interacts in such a complex way with a person’s identity that addressing them successfully may require full-on psychological therapy. (Source)
As mentioned in my piece about workaholism, when a high achiever is always on and never leaves work, this enmeshment means you and your role are essentially one. While this has been the trend in many companies (especially in tech), it is truly a swindle technique to create cultures where work fulfills purpose. Spending life to work for a good cause and purpose should be a high priority, but it should never be manipulated into first position with all other wellness elements - health, family, relationships, time, home - on the chopping block.
PARALYZES BOTH INDIVIDUAL & BUSINESS
It is critical for an inside-out wellbeing journey to learn to distinguish and differentiate your role from yourself. It is dangerous to lose yourself in your role and not be capable of understanding how others view your role separate from you. Others are simply reacting to how your role is supposed to intertwine with their work role. If everyone’s identity is wrapped up in those roles, the wide-spread personal ramifications can be a mess for an organizational culture. The reactions of colleagues should be healthily detached from identity in order to not be confused with what each thinks of the other as an individual.
As the adage goes: “We are not who we think we are. We are not who other people think we are. We are often who we think other people think we are.”
Your role within an organization is important to anchor you in your tasks, understand how to relate to the work of others, and identify how your “position” serves the organization. The danger is in bringing your entire self into your role or work to the point where you confuse your role with self-worth. When your experiences, training, abilities, interests, knowledge, intricacies, quirks and passions are all intertwined with your work, your role is no longer defined clearly as separate from you. It is healthy for both individual and business to be able to analyze and reflect on the organization and the system in which you’re operating. Losing a macro viewpoint only paralyzes both individual and business from truth and wise judgement.
HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE ENMESHED WITH WORK?
How do you know if your identity has become enmeshed with work? Harvard outlines the following questions (source):
1. How much do you think about your job outside of the office? Is your mind frequently consumed with work-related thoughts? Is it difficult to participate in conversations with others that are not about your work?
2. How do you describe yourself? How much of this description is tied up in your job, title, or company? Are there any other ways you would describe yourself? How quickly do you tell people you’ve just met about your job?
3. Where do you spend most of your time? Has anyone ever complained to you that you are in the office too much?
4. Do you have hobbies outside of work that do not directly involve your work-related skills and abilities? Are you able to consistently spend your time exercising other parts of your brain?
5. How would you feel if you could no longer continue in your profession? How distressing would this be to you?
HOW TO UNMESH
The key is to understand the trap that you’re walking into when you invite your work to be a foundation for your identity. It will not serve you or your business in the long run. Understand that this is growth and protection for your wellbeing and the ultimate wellbeing of your work. By claiming back your life, engaging in well-rounded activities and interests, and reconnecting with your personal relationships, you can build a more balanced, diversified, and strong identity foundation in line with your core values.
Acknowledge & Accept: Once you can admit that your identity is enmeshed with work, you have begun the process toward growth. Accept that it will take time and effort to consciously make changes. Remember change is not comfortable, but you can’t grow without change.
Delegate In Order Free Time: Rely more on your coworkers, hire a virtual assistant, get an intern, hire an additional colleague. Delegation is also a very important leadership skillset, so think of it as growth for your career as well.
Start small. You don’t have to go out and try to win a triathlon. Try out some hobbies you’ve been interested in and don’t worry about long term commitment. Small changes are easier to stick with and provide more opportunity for growth once you begin to experience new things.
Rebuild your network. Re-engage with your friends and family to revitalize your relationships. It will establish a support system as you detangle from work, and you will have fun in the meantime. Don’t worry about quantity - focus on quality. Research shows that having just three to five close friends is associated with the highest levels of life satisfaction.
Establish your values. What is most important to you? What values do you stand on? Let these principles guide your next steps. Therapists use “Values Clarification” to help clients identify and prioritize their values. This process involves reflecting, ranking, describing and rating your desired direction for relationships, community, careers, parenting, etc. Here is a worksheet you can use to begin this process.
Look beyond your job title. Consider how your skills could be used in different contexts. It is possible that you can use your skills in many other areas beyond your company and title. Growing your awareness and exploring how you can use your skills in a wider capacity automatically diminishes the the foundational identity of your work role. Once you can disentangle yourself from your work, you can become a better leader and begin to make the differences you want to make.
SUMMATION
I realize that what I am writing about is the antithesis of everything I believed for many years as I built my own career. I always believed you had to throw everything into your work and work harder than everyone else to get anywhere or get anything special done. This is a fallacy designed by a system that isn’t working. I firmly believe you can be a better leader and asset to your business when your identity is not 100% in your work. The risk and cost is far too great for both you and your business to live for work.
When an identity hits a wall, it can cause tremendous pain, but it can also force change which can produce growth. In my case, it has forced growth, and growth produces wisdom. My hope is that this content will strike a cord of truth in hearts and open a door for growth without the need to hit a wall.
I look forward to sharing more about my search for truth in identity.