Unhealthy attachments
Let go of your unhealthy work identity attachments to move forward in your career
Do any of these thoughts ever cross your mind...a desire to be smart. To be funny. To be talented. To be thin. To be pretty. To be wealthy. To be famous. To be...[insert anything your heart desires here].
Believe it or not, these are identities.
When you say to yourself "I am in a relationship" or "I am an accountant" or "I am in the middle class" these are identities.
Age, relationship status, education level, sexual preference, nationality, hometown, diet, exercise level and many more categories are all dimensions of our identity.
Last week, in a moment of boredom, I stumbled upon a podcast about unhealthy attachments. The host, Mallory Ervin, started off by recounting the time when she had her hair extensions removed after ten years of wearing them!
For Mallory, this was like becoming another person. She talked about staring at herself in the mirror at the salon and not recognizing the woman staring back, and not wanting to know who that woman was.
Mallory was attached to being beautiful
She had formed her identity around how she wanted to be seen and perceived by others, instead of being who she really was.
In her words, these are excerpts from her podcast episode:
Mallory couldn't see who she was anymore. She was longing for and pretending to have an identity that wasn't truly her.
Mallory set a standard of what she thought her identity was supposed to be and became so attached to that standard that she spent years (and thousands of dollars) maintaining it.
Yet, one day, she decided to let go (physically and mentally) of this attachment.
By literally stripping away her hair extensions, she let go of an identity that wasn't serving her.
In doing so, she noticed how attached she was to something that didn't matter.
Now, this story is a powerful reminder of all the identities we hold onto in our life (there are many of them), but let's transition to work identities.
Notice your attachment to your work identities
What does it mean to be a manager?
What does it mean to be a CEO?
What does it mean to be an oversubscribed coach? Or a designer with 100k followers?
Take a look at the identity desires and attachments you have in your work life. Are they about power? Hierarchy? Influence? Something else?
We all have unhealthy attachments in our professional identities.
There's a reason we're known as the busy corporate strategist or the always sunny financial advisor. Are you masquerading to be seen a certain way? Or, are you oblivious, in denial, or afraid of who you really are in your work?
How to let go of unhealthy attachments
Usually, we haven't stopped to ask ourselves about our relationship to our professional identity.
Most of us want to be known for something in our work. Ask yourself, why?
Why does X professional identity matter to you?
What if you never achieve partner in a firm? Or what if you never become a director of a department? Will you feel let down and disappointed in yourself? Why?
What else can you become in your work instead?
Are you attached to a certain title or professional identity word? What does that word mean to you? What's your belief system around it?
Remember, identities are social constructs. You can construct the professional identity you want. Don't create yourself in the image of others. Take a moment to let go of professional identity attachments so you can be or become your best and truest professional self.