Chapter 8: Becoming Yourself

Monday, March 2nd, 2009 at 2:04 am

If we knew from the start what it meant to be fully ourselves, finding a new career would be so much easier. But because we are growing and changing all the time, the oft-cited key to a better working life, “knowing yourself,” turns out to be the prize at the end of the journey rather than the light at its beginning. Whether we feel closer to Pierre Gerard, who as a teenager felt a calling to minister to the suffering, or to Lucy Hartman, who stumbled through twenty years of technical and managerial jobs before finding her mission as a professional coach, there is no substitute for constant exploration. We don’t find ourselves in a blinding flash of insight, and neither do we change overnight. We learn by doing, and each new experience is part answer and part question.

The stories we have read illustrate that identity transitions unfold as cycles of changes (as summarized in figure 8-1) in which our early images of possible selves lead to the limbolike state when we live and work between provisional identities; with several loops around this cycle, we eventually undergo a more profound change that allows fuller expression of whom we have become.

Progress in this cycle only comes with practice. Experiments, connections, and the sense we make of them are the tangible “hooks” we use to test our possible selves, making them more real, more “implementable.” The cumulative effects of putting identity in practice change what we do, how we work, and what work means in the broader context of our lives.

Change takes time because we usually have to cycle through identifying and testing possibilities a few times, asking better questions with each round of tests, crafting better experiments, and building on what we have learned before. Two different rhythms regulate this cycle. Speed is of the essence in moving from making a list of possible selves—in our heads or on paper—to actually testing any one of them. If it seems that relatively few people make the career changes they dream about it is because many of us just don’t take the first step. Which self we test hardly matters; small steps like embarking on a new project or going to a night course can ignite a process that changes everything. But, paradoxically, it is usually better to slow down in the testing phase, investing enough time to explore even those selves that seem less promising. We need time to fully internalize the selfknowledge we are accumulating with each experience. Even when taking our time seems unproductive, it is hardly so; we are moving away from outdated images of what we “ought” to be, of meeting expectations or pleasing others—the hidden foundation that dictated our old working identity—and moving toward greater self-direction.^[1]

The reinvention process challenges us to redefine ourselves. But, contrary to popular belief, working our identities is not an exercise in abstraction or introspection; it is a messy trial-anderror process of learning by doing in which experience in the here and now (not in the distant past) helps to evolve our ideas about what is plausible—and desirable. The most typical problem at midcareer is not defining what kind of work we find enjoyable and meaningful. Rather, it is figuring out how to transfer old preferences and values to new and different contexts and how to integrate those with changing priorities and newly blooming potential. It is a problem of recombining and reanchoring. And the “solution” is never the job change itself. Self-creation is a lifelong journey. Only by our actions do we learn who we want to become, how best to travel, and what else will need to change to ease the way.

Taken From: Working Identity: Unconventional Strategies for Reinventing Your Career