When My Life Was My Job

Dan’s story below resonated so much with me when I read it that I had to share it with you. My whole life and identity was my job. I lived to get up every morning to go to work and conquer. I loved my job – so you get it right! Read Dan’s story below, by Jenna Koretz.

Dan*, a partner at a major Boston law firm, was due at the office, but instead, he was curled on his bathroom floor, unshaven and in his pajamas, crying into a towel.

It began slowly, in a meeting with a particularly pushy client, when a thought bubbled up in his mind: “Why the hell am I even here?” From that moment, he noticed that his impatience, unhappiness, and frustration with his job grew deeper, until all at once, he realized: he didn’t find happiness or fulfillment in his work — and maybe he never had.

For someone who had built his entire idea of himself around his career, this thought sent Dan into an existential crisis. Who was he, if not a high-powered lawyer? Had he wasted so many years working for nothing? Would he have had more friends and a happier family if he hadn’t spent all those nights at the office?

Dan’s story is not uncommon. Many people with high-pressure jobs find themselves unhappy with their careers, despite working hard their whole lives to get to their current position. Hating your job is one thing — but what happens if you identify so closely with your work that hating your job means hating yourself?

Psychologists use the term “enmeshment” to describe a situation where the boundaries between people become blurred, and individual identities lose importance. Enmeshment prevents the development of a stable, independent sense of self. Dan — like many in high-pressure jobs — had become enmeshed not with another person, but with his career.

How did you find Dan’s story? Does it resonate with you in anyway? Psychologists say, “A particular confluence of high achievement, intense competitiveness, and culture of overwork has caught many in a perfect storm of career enmeshment and burnout.” Over the years they say, these issues interact in such complex ways with people’s identity, personality, and emotions that it often requires full-on psychological therapy to address them successfully.”

Thankfully, I did not require mental therapy, but I can identify with Dan’s story and I know many people who can. One major differentiating factor between my situation and Dan’s was that I enjoyed my job and Dan hated his. But, the intensity of involvement was more or less the same.

So, what are some of the characteristics that that are exhibited:

The work culture in many high-pressure fields often rewards working longer hours with raises, prestige, and promotions. Dan, myself included have found that spending more and more time in the office (or tethered to his corporate iPhone) was the price he had to pay for his rapid rise through the firm. However, when you engage in any intense activity for the great majority of your waking hours, that activity will tend to become more and more central to your identity — if only because it has displaced other activities and relationships with which you might identify. I spent more time with my work than I did my family.

Certain careers or career achievements are often highly valued in an individual’s family or community. Moving up and succeeding was important to me. When career success is seen as the ultimate life goal, individuals can feel disconnected from their family and peers if they fail to (or simply choose not to) achieve a certain level of professional success. This fear of failure and isolation drives people to center their lives on achieving what is expected of them. This intense focus and drive, however, forces their identities to ultimately become synonymous with their work.

When high pressure jobs are paired with a big paycheck, individuals can find themselves launched into a new socioeconomic class. Our identities are highly influenced by how we present ourselves to others. When someone forms an identity focused around wealth, achievement, and influence, they tie themselves to that high-paying career that got them there.

Even for those who don’t burn out, constructing one’s identity closely around a career is a risky move. Companies and entire industries struggle and go under. So how do you know if your identity has become enmeshed with your career? Consider the following questions:

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?

If these questions cause you to worry about the degree to which your job has influenced your identity, there are things you can do to initiate change.

Free up time. Delegate tasks at work to free up time, and (crucially) fill that time with non-work related activities. Effective delegation requires giving up some control of exactly how the work is to be executed, which in itself is a healthy exercise in communication and acceptance.

Start small. For your new activities outside of work, start small and try out some hobbies you’ve had your eye on. You don’t have to commit to anything long term; the idea is to start exploring new things you might want to integrate into your life and your identity.

Rebuild your network. Reach out to friends and family to revitalize your social circles. You’ll end up having fun while also establishing a support network for yourself.

Decide what’s important to you. Establish and review your principles and values. What is most important to you? Think about what you care about in life, and let those priorities guide you toward what’s next.

Look beyond your job title. Consider reframing your relationship to your career not simply in terms of your company or title, but in terms of your skills that could be used across different contexts.

While identifying closely with your career isn’t necessarily bad, it makes you vulnerable to a painful identity crisis if you burn out, get laid off, or retire. Individuals in these situations frequently suffer anxiety, depression, and despair. By claiming back some time for yourself and diversifying your activities and relationships, you can build a more balanced and robust identity in line with your values. Start working on this in 2020.

c