4 Tips to Expand Your Identity Beyond Your Job

How do you define yourself? In our last blog article we posted the question, “When you meet someone new, how do you introduce yourself? ‘Hi, my name is . I’m a ____.’ How do you fill in that blank?” Hopefully by the time you reached the end of the article, you understood that you are so much more than your resume and current job title.

Understanding that, however, doesn’t mean it’s always easy to put it into practice. It’s sometimes easier to say, “You are more than your job,” than it is to live out that understanding. We hope the following tips help you ground your self-worth and identify in more than your paycheck. Your personal and your professional life will benefit from it!

Explore Your Passions

So, you spend your days making sense out of spreadsheets and ledgers and you love it. That’s awesome! What else do you love? You don’t have to be Vincent Van Gogh or Claude Monet to be passionate about painting landscapes. If you find it relaxing or invigorating to apply layers of acrylic paint to canvas, go for it. If mastering your downward dog puts a little giddy-up in your step, set aside time to practice yoga on a regular basis.

Make Time For Your Tribe

You’re more than the things you enjoy and the things you do. Invest in the relationships that mean most to you. Carve out time to focus on your family, your friends, your mentors, and your mentees. Take note of what you can pour into them and how their presence in your life bolsters you. From game nights and family dinners to long meandering walks in the park and phone calls that linger, time with the people that matter most to you are a great way to remember that where you draw your paycheck is just about what you do, not who you are.

Don’t Overlook Self-Care

You’re busy. You’re juggling work. You’re juggling family. You’re juggling upkeep on your home. You’re juggling school and volunteer activities. It’s a lot to keep up with and it can be easy to shelve the tasks that are purely about and for you in order to make space for it all. Before you give up your haircut or pass on a trip to the gym, remember this: you are at your best when you are living your best full life.

When you’re out of balance, when all your focus and your energy is being poured into one facet, all facets of you suffer for it…even the one you’re pouring completely into. Investing time in self-care will recharge and refocus you in a way that sends up productive ripples throughout your full to-do list. It will also help keep your job in its place – the one that doesn’t define you.

Celebrate ALL the Wins

Your fledgling business closed out its first ever profitable quarter. You celebrate, right? You pat yourself and your team on the collective back and you take a moment to let success soak in. You just landed the promotion you’ve been working hard for and you take a moment to appreciate the victory. What happens when you manage to pull off an almost perfect handstand in your virtual yoga class? What do you do when you post your personal best time ever on your daily 3K run? When the loaf of sourdough bread that you spent weeks prepping for comes out of the oven with the perfect balance of crispy crust and soft, luscious interior, do you take a moment to recognize the accomplishment? Celebrate all your wins – not just the ones that occur while you’re working your day job. You are more than your job and your successes transcend your business title.