Identity Transitions: Accepting That You Are Not Just What You Do

When you relinquish your professional role, it is hard to accept the loss of status and privileges. Crafting a new identity requires you to tell a new story about yourself.

- Chua Mui Hoong

I was filling up an immigration card recently when I came across the column: Occupation. I paused. I had been writing "journalist" or "writer" for 30 years. But I was no longer a full-time journalist, or even a part-time one. I was now a freelance writer. Most of my work week these days is spent doing a course in pastoral care. But putting down "student" or "pastoral care intern" didn't feel right either.

I took a deep breath, and penned: "Retired."

That was the first time I wrote that word. Before that, in the intervening months after I left full-time employment with this newspaper (where I remain an ad hoc contributor), I had described myself as a "semi-retired journalist" as though that "semi" allowed me to retain my identity as a journalist that had anchored me for so long.

In putting the word "Retired" down on paper, I made a small but significant shift towards accepting my new identity. I am post-career, moving into the retirement phase of my life.

Every one of us will go through many life transitions. Some transitions will be easier than others. Many children from stable families, for example, manage the transition to adolescence and young adulthood smoothly, with some growing pains along the way. For others, it might be a struggle to grow into adulthood.

Those of us who have gone through midlife know first-hand the strange, long struggle of those years. Your sense of professional identity might war with your sense of personal significance.

Similarly, the transition into later years can be fraught. Moving into retirement can be very hard for people who have achieved a high level of professional success.

As I have moved through these roles in recent years, I've become very interested in finding out how people manage such life transitions, and how best to manage such shifts well. Here are some concepts I found useful.

I AM NOT WHAT I DO

Understand that our role and identity need not overlap.