Reinventing Your Life and Work: Identity Life Traps

Feb 21

“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one’s own sunshine.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The other day, I was listening to NPR and they were talking about the massive layoffs in the tech industry and the differences in how people have responded to the experience.

Some people go into a massive depression or anxiety while others take it with a grain of salt and move on, maybe even seeing it as an opportunity.

As someone who coaches a lot of people at career crossroads and who went through a major one in my own life, the response really intrigues me.

One person called in and shared that her husband was laid off and she noticed he was ok, whereas his colleagues were struggling. She suggested it had something to do with the fact that he had other outlets in his life. He was active in his church, part of a band, etc.

What she was talking about in an indirect way is how much one’s identity is tied up in a role, as it can really impact response.

When your identity is so tied to how you perform in a role, if you are not measuring up, it can be crippling to your self-esteem and self-worth.

That could be your job title, but it can be other roles you value or have had expectations put on you around like caretaker, provider, change-maker, etc.

This translates into:

If your child is “not ok” or your elder parents are getting sicker, you feel guilty.
If you are not making enough money, you are not really contributing to your family.
When you can’t see the direct impact of your work, you are not really living up to being the leader you should be.

We all have images of the roles we should be playing and oftentimes we are looking at these roles through clouded glasses. They are based on other people’s expectations, society’s shoulds, and painful past experiences.

They come from a place of needing to prove yourself instead of listening to how you are being guided and what you truly value.

Many of my clients feel stuck in indecision because what they want is in conflict with the cloudy expectations of the roles they need to fill.

I understand this life trap really well myself.

Being an Asian American Immigrant from the East Coast, the pressure on identity to be “successful” was palpable. The first question often asked whenever I would meet someone new is “what do you do?”

Even though I chose to leave my profession and deliberately release the pressure of being the bread-winner, it was still earth-shattering to my ego. So much of my worthiness was tied up in my title and how much money I made.

I knew what it felt like to reach “success” and feel empty. I was determined to live my life on my terms (though I didn’t even know what that meant) and experience true fulfillment. I want to also say, there is nothing wrong with ambition and making money. I still embrace these aspects of myself, but they now come from a healthier place of choice versus a need to prove.

It took a lot of journaling, coaching and experimentation, but slowly, I learned how to see my value as a person beyond my roles and expectations.

One of the core foundational values in action of my coaching philosophy is to create from wholeness and it grew from that journey.

My clients, too, are determined to feel fulfillment. Their identity is at a crossroads between old expectations and new undiscovered ways of creating a life of success based on their terms.

When they try to figure out what’s next for them, they fall into the trap of looking at their options and unconsciously evaluating the form of their options to the expectations put on them.

For example, I have clients who want to live a soft life but they are so entrenched in being told that success and humility come from hard work. So, when they see an opportunity to elevate, they immediately think it means more hard work because they don’t have evidence that more success can come with more support.

Unhooking from old ways can be scary because it takes you down the road of the unknown and you can find yourself with one foot on the brake and the other on the gas pedal.

That’s why I created my North Star Clarity Tool. It’s what I use at every season and decision point to help me choose my goals from a place of wholeness.

Recently, I completed facilitating a mural project with a group of middle-schoolers. The amount of grace and flow that unfolded in this collaboration was not something I expected. Especially because I have minimal art experience and this mural was more than 3x’s the previous one I facilitated.

When I looked at the form, all of my old identities, expectations and agendas would tell me this is not a good choice, but I used my own Clarity Tool. It opens you up to other intelligences beyond mental. It teaches you how to listen to your heart, how forces greater than you are guiding you and what old ways you can release to allow for a new experience of life as well as something that often gets left out of the equation—uncovering what you truly desire.