Are We Our Job Titles?

Here's something I've been noticing, I meet so many brilliant people who've completely lost themselves inside their professional identity.

Ask them what they do? Instant answer. Ask them who they are? Silence.

And honestly, I get it. We're taught from school onwards to define ourselves by achievement. By role. By output. It's how we introduce ourselves at networking events, how we measure progress, how we explain our worth, and in many cases, shows our personality.

But here's where it gets tricky.

Sometimes, success becomes the very thing that traps us. That impressive title, the salary that finally feels comfortable, the external validation from people who are impressed when you tell them what you do. It creates what I call golden handcuffs. You stay because it looks good. Because walking away feels harder to explain. Because you've built an entire identity around being "the successful one."

As Steger and Dik (2010) remind us in their research on meaningful work, we're genuinely wired to seek purpose through our careers. But when that purpose becomes our entire identity? That's when we can be vulnerable.

Here's what the research shows.

Herminia Ibarra (2003), who studies career transitions, found that identity change is messy, non-linear, and requires experimentation. When disruption hits (redundancy, burnout, or career change), people don't just lose a job. They lose a story. A sense of who they are. As she puts it, "we discover the true possibilities by doing, by trying out new activities, reaching out to new groups, finding new role models". And with the exponential growth of technology reshaping traditional roles as we know them? This issue is becoming urgent.

Mark Savickas (2013), who developed Career Construction Theory, emphasises that successful adaptation requires the ability to reconstruct career narratives when traditional career paths dissolve. The careers we've anchored our identities to might not exist in five years. If we are our job titles, what happens when those titles are no longer revered?

Career adaptability, according to Savickas, comprises of concern, control, curiosity, and confidence. But here's the catch: we can't access these resources when our entire sense of self is under threat.

So what's the alternative?

Rebuilding isn't about finding a new title. It's about expanding who we're allowed to be. It's about recognising that you are a human having a career, not a career pretending to be human.

That's identity work. That's the work I love doing.

If you're in that in-between space right now, where the old narrative no longer fits but the new one is still unclear, I'd love to talk. Because this transition you're experiencing?

It could be the most important professional development work you ever do.

References

• Ibarra, H. (2003). Working identity: Unconventional strategies for reinventing your career. Harvard Business School Press.

• Savickas, M. L. (2013). Career construction theory and practice. In R. W. Lent & S. D. Brown (Eds.), Career development and counseling: Putting theory and research to work (2nd ed., pp. 147-183). John Wiley & Sons.

• Steger, M. F., & Dik, B. J. (2010). Work as meaning: Individual and organizational benefits of engaging in meaningful work. In P. A. Linley, S. Harrington, & N. Garcea (Eds.), Oxford handbook of positive psychology and work (pp. 131-142). Oxford University Press.