• Reinventing Yourself

“Most of the time, our working identity changes so gradually and naturally that we don’t even notice how much we have changed. But sometimes we hit a period when the desire for change imposes itself with great urgency. What do we do? We try to think out our dilemma. We try to swap our old, outdated roles for new, more alluring selves in one fell swoop. And we get stuck. Why? Because, as adults we’re much more likely to act our way into a new way of thinking than to think our way into a new way of acting. We rethink our selves in the same way: by gradually exposing ourselves to new worlds, relationships, and roles.

We like to think that we can leap directly from a desire for change to a single insight or decision that will complete our reinvention. As a result, we remain naive about the long, essential testing period when our actions transform (or fail to transform) fuzzy, undefined possibilities into concrete choices we can evaluate.

Neither Lucy nor Pierre planned their way into their transitions, nor did they kick things off with a good dose of self-analysis. Instead, events in their lives and work led them to envision a new range of possible selves, the various images—both good and bad—of whom we might become that we all carry.

Dan McIvy’s story below illustrates that as we explore possibilities, we start to recognize, question, and eventually dismantle some of the basic operating principles that are at the foundation of our working identities: what kinds of relationships we develop with the institutions in which we work and with our colleagues, and what kind of balance we strike between our private and professional lives.

Both Dan’s story and Susan’s illustrate that working identity involves revisiting the basic assumptions we use to evaluate possibilities.