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Ask the Readers: Are You Your Work?

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One of the key concepts that we as professional creatives need to master is learning to separate our identity from our creating. “We are brilliant at what we do, but what we do does not define us,” is the second point on the AC manifesto, and has been the focus of past podcasts. In his book The War of Art, Steven Pressfield says that as professionals we should not “overidentify with our jobs.”

This was a hard concept for me to grasp. The passion that serves me well as a creative individual also surfaced in negative ways in my work: fighting too hard for ideas, taking rejection of my work personally. While I’ve learned to control these impulses in my workday job, I find they are emerging again as I explore my passion for writing. I’m allowing too much of my identity to hinge on the success or failure of an individual writing assignment.

This leads me to ask you:

  • How did you learn to separate your identity—who you are—from what you do and make?
  • In what ways do you (or did you) struggle with this separation?
I’d love if you would share your thoughts in the comments section below.
Mindy Holahan

Mindy Holahan

Mindy's passions are writing and teaching people to use new tools, from technology to crafts. You can connect with her on Twitter, at MindyHolahan.com, and at her Make Cool Stuff column at The Nerdist.
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  • Renay

    As one who got a taste of passion/work collision many years ago (which ultimately led to burnout), this remains a struggle.  These days I try to balance it by having two half-jobs, one for which I’m passionate and one – not so much.  Then there’s my most creative ‘work,’ which is my passion/hobby and which I do in my free time.
    It’s all about balance for me, and I find structuring specific times for each seems to help create that balance.

  • http://twitter.com/sgottreu Scott Gottreu

    I don’t know that I have learned how to separate my work from my identity fully. At my last job, I constantly wrestled with not taking rejection personally.  My technical decisions were called into question at times and I took it as a personal attack.  I think being laid off from that job was the best thing to help me in this area.  I spent 7 months trying to find work and it forced me to explain who I was differently.  I wasn’t a web developer. I was a guy who had done that work in the past but was willing to do anything now.

    What I wrestle with currently is when I ship but then no one uses my work.  I used up precious creative energy working on this and they wasted the money having me create this and then not use it.  Then I get frustrated with the whole process.  I guess I see it too much as them wasting my time instead of them allocating resources in a new way.

    I think also having creatives outlets besides my work has helped separate my identity from what I produce.

  • http://profiles.google.com/porterink Cherri Porter

    I can’t separate who I am from what I do–this makes bad teaching days, weeks and semesters devastating. Teaching is one of the first things in my adult life to go right, so it makes sense I would put so much weight on it, but I certainly recognize it as something I need to work on. So do some of my students, unfortunately. 

  • FJR

    As a teacher I identify strongly with my work in the sense that there is an urgency to me in serving students well in the time I have with them. But I am also a mother of three, and how I take care of my children is another huge part of who I am. How I serve in my community is another huge part of who I am.

  • http://www.CowboyUpMedia.com CowboyUpMedia

    I wonder if it’s the right question?

    We’re all familiar with the stories / statistics of folks passing away a year or two after ‘retirement’ – and can maybe draw the conclusion that they lost their identity somehow.  That work = identity.

    But perhaps the better objective – is to fight to ‘Be our Purpose’.  On this earth and in serving our fellow man.

    If our Work = Our Purpose, then life becomes Mission, which has much more creative juice and staying power.

    That said, we all still need to take retreats from time to time – and simply step away.  When I’m riding horses or climbing mountains, I don’t need to be Tweet’n about it or churning through the meaning of it in light of my work the whole time.

    From time to time, we simply need to enjoy the simple pleasures, while disengaging from work objectives.

    Great blog pardner!

    • Bcgray2003

      I wish I knew my purpose, mission. I know that I find passion in creative projects where t get to explore and stretch my boundaries, perhaps even breaking through beyond the limits of what I thought I could do.

      I do find myself in my work and hold that up as a measure of my own validity. That’s a problem that maybe others share, too.

      So now at 55, I wonder, what should I do as Barry Rev. 3? I’ve probably got one more career I me so what should it be? My wife wonders, too… :-)

      • fjr

        Bcgray, Andrew Halfacre just wrote on this subject on the Lateral Action blog- starting to describe his ten steps to finding your passion. From my own experience of recently having set out to find my own part 3, my most central friendly advice is that you give yourself months of trying a variety of things that interest you, stick with them awhile to see how they feel, and don’t let anxiousness to find something lead you to seeking premature closure. It took me about a year to scope things out thoroughly, by trying some things. Three things I looked at didn’t pass my personal test for a long-term investment of energy. But three did. My second piece of advice is to consider having more than one thing going. One doesn’t need to have only one passion. Setting youself up to pick only one makes it harder than if you let yourself pursue more than one. (Todd, I hope this was okay to suggest something. I am about BCG’s age, so I thought my recent experience might be helpful.)

        • http://www.accidentalcreative.com Todd Henry

          Absolutely, and great advice! Thanks for sharing.