Is your identity all about your career? Maybe you need a Personal Strategy.
This year, I embarked on an exciting venture: I launched my own website. No, this isn’t just a small website for friends and family, but a whole platform I intend on growing into a non-profit. I put the work in - from teaching myself Search Engine Optimization tactics to boost site traffic, to learning Adobe Illustrator to create graphics for my website, to days spent crafting blog content.
Once the national quarantine began, I only grew more intense. Dealt all the time in the world, I spent hours doing research, website building, social media marketing, and meeting with potential partners. When people asked what I was doing in quarantine, I talked endlessly about my website because I was proud but also because it was all I had really focused on.
But when places started reopening in the summer, liberating all of us to resume some of our more normal activities, I found that I couldn’t remember what I had enjoyed doing outside of typing away on my laptop in my living room. It was then I had to realize, I had made my website into my whole world.
This phenomenon, sometimes called career enmeshment, is very common among startup founders and those in very high intensity careers, such as tech or corporate law. Essentially, our boundaries between our personal identity and our work become blurred - so much so that our main personality trait is our career rather than our passions, hobbies, or relationships.
We often do this against our better judgement, too. We enter careers knowing that one day we will change our paths or retire and we build startups knowing they could very well fail or we could move on. Despite that, we can still fall into the trap of career enmeshment and, while it’s no sin to work hard, that can have serious impacts on the other important roles in our lives.
On top of a loss of personal identity, career enmeshment can make us really lonely. This is especially true for those of us who often work alone such as startup founders and CEOs. While it’s admirable to be taking career risks and being in a position of leadership, we can feel isolated by the intensity and responsibility of our work. Not to mention that this can be worsened by the current global situation that will leave many of us working from home for the rest of the year.
One of the ways to combat this phenomenon is through developing a Personal Strategy. This method helps you to identify and provide appropriate focus to all of your important roles, not just your work related one. By intentionally declaring goals and objectives that assess your holistic values and priorities, you can create and execute a strategy to build resilience, skills, and/or a broader community to help you balance your work-self with your ideal self . To craft your Personal Strategy, you may want to focus on some of these suggestions:
Recognize Enmeshment. The first step to resolving many problems is acknowledgement. If you’re concerned that you may be too reliant on your career for self definition, ask yourself some crucial questions. How would you describe yourself? How much of that description relies on your job title or career-associated activities? What do you do outside of work? How would you feel if you were no longer able to continue your current career? These reflections can help you see how tightly coupled your identity is to your work.
Find Your Passions. If time spent at home this year was good for anything, it was exploring and trying new things. Luckily, there are plenty of resources on the internet, like the Ultimate Hobby List or insights from the New York Times, that can help determine if a new activity might be right for you. For me, running got me off of my laptop and onto the streets, giving me the opportunity to try something different.
Make a Friend. In our age of connectivity, you can find new friends with similar interests easily on Facebook, MeetUp, or any number of websites. If you’re a startup builder, there are also platforms devoted to connecting potential partners, which could make working a little less lonely - CoFoundersLab is only one of them. Another option is to reconnect with old friends and colleagues - learn what they’ve been up to in their careers and beyond.
Value Reflection. What is important to you? What do you like doing? What are some non-career goals you have? Reflecting on your values and whether or not the way you live is consistent with them can help you to re-center your sense of self. While I opt for reflection in the form of journaling, you could talk these out with a friend or take an introspective walk or listen to some tips from our CEO (click here).
Ask for help. None of us can make it alone, no matter how hard we try, and that’s okay. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness - it’s proof that you’re eager to improve. Friends, family, and colleagues are all great resources, but you can also get help from experts who have experience in building Personal Strategy.
While enjoying your career and gaining a strong identity from it is not necessarily an issue, making it your whole world can have serious impacts on your sense of self, as well as your relationships. If you’re already feeling career enmeshment, there’s a chance it will only continue to compound as working and living alone becomes more and more the norm. Crafting a Personal Strategy is a valuable tool in combating the loneliness and heightened intensity of our career.
Let us know if these or other approaches have worked for you. And if you need help in getting started with your own Personal Strategy to align your goals and communicate your value, please get in touch.