When Your Identity Starts Carrying Too Much

A reflection by Dr. Sarai Koo

There is a question I occasionally ask people who have spent years becoming exceptionally good at what they do.

Who are you when you are no longer doing the thing everyone knows you for?

The question usually sounds easier than it turns out to be. People begin with a title, a responsibility, an accomplishment, or a description of what others depend on them to provide, telling me they are a leader, a parent, a founder, a physician, a caregiver, a problem solver, the dependable one, or the person who somehow keeps everything moving.

Those answers matter, and they reflect real parts of a person's life. What interests me more is what happens once a role becomes so intertwined with identity that separating the two becomes uncomfortable.

Over the years, I have worked with leaders whose competence became part of the way they understood themselves, leaders who were respected because they could solve difficult problems, trusted because they rarely dropped the ball, and valued because they could carry responsibility when others could not. None of that is inherently a problem, since competence, reliability, achievement, and responsibility can reflect years of discipline, sacrifice, purpose, and meaningful contribution. The strain begins more quietly, when a role stops describing something a person does and gradually starts answering the question of who they believe they are.

Over the next several issues, I want to spend real time with this idea, because identity under pressure deserves more room than a single reflection can hold. I want to begin with the moment a strength quietly turns into something a person feels they can no longer set down, and that is where we will go next.

What part of who you have become would feel hardest to set down, even temporarily, and what might that reveal about the place it holds in your identity?

More soon.

Dr. Sarai Koo

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