you are not your career
We often associate who we are with what we do.
This isn’t necessarily unreasonable, given how much time we spend at work or working from home. Society has conditioned us to identify with our careers–at an early age, we’re asked what we want to be when we grow up (which is not a bad thing to ask a kid), and when we first meet someone new, one of the first questions asked is, “what do you do?”
Attaching your identity to your career can be dangerous because it can keep you stuck in a life that is not authentic to you.
If you see your Self as a banker because that’s the career path you were sent down, yet you want to be a writer (or choose anything not related to banking), you may never leave banking because that’s “who you are”--that’s how the world knows you. It can be scary to become the person you know you are meant to be but no one else has ever seen.
So, how do you avoid becoming attaching your identity to your career?
I don’t know…yet.
I do have some ideas, though.
The first starts with awareness. Develop awareness of how you view your Self and whether or not you are attaching your identity and self-worth to your career.
Think about what you do. In the banker example, instead of being a “banker,” view yourself as someone who provides a high level of service, helping people solve problems, manage their money, fund projects, etc. Providing a high level of service to others is transferable and can manifest itself in many different ways and career paths. It also allows you to move outside of banking to a field more aligned with your authentic Self.
Move closer to your authentic life. The greatest risk to your identity being attached to your career is being stuck in a job that does not align with your authentic Self. If you are living your authentic life, you are less likely to be stuck in a career that does not fulfill you, makes you unhappy, and, most importantly, are confident in your Self and do not seek validation and confidence from the outside world.
You are not your career–even if you love what you do.
See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,
JC
