You are more than your Visiting Cards!

This has become my favorite topic of observation when I meet people. This is indeed a deep and multifaceted topic.

One of the participants of my workshop Bhavana shared her experience how a young lady who was flaunting her dress, education as well as newly acquired corporate identity at wedding ceremony, stopped throwing attitude to her when she came to know Bhavana is a very senior Human Resource professional at renowned company. This incident made Bhavana contemplate on these questions why do I need this identity to be accepted and respected by people? Is this my only identity? Do my job or role defines me?  Am I not much more than my job? And what if tomorrow I choose to leave the company or job how will society perceive me?

How true this is!

Every time we are asked to introduce ourselves, we usually say our name and what we do i.e. our profession. Our society has unsaid fixed parameters of evaluating success of any person – education, job, company name, post, salary, size of your car and home!

I always say to my friends typically at social gatherings as a part of introduction when someone says  I am working with xyx company and if that xyz happens to be a very renowned organization then no further questions are asked, no further information is sought and you are perceived as ‘oh wow he/she is something’. What you actually do there doesn’t matter, how you are as a person doesn’t matter, how good you are as a colleague or boss doesn’t matter, are you really contributing to the company or doing justice to your role or not doesn’t matter. What matters to the society is your professional identity!

There is nothing wrong in living with professional identities but it starts creating limitations or imbalances when people get too obsessed with it or can’t live without it and it creates so much fear and insecurities when society starts giving undue weightage to these tags.

One of my client who is renowned doctor who is now handing over hospital management her son, she has already started feeling insecure. She can’t imagine her life without spending a day at hospital and now she has started developing depression, she is becoming cranky and she just can’t let go of her position.

My friend is choosing to suffer at job instead of starting his own company in advertising which is his true passion just because he is unwilling to let go corporate tag, he cant think of life where he will no longer be known as VP and an Engineer.

One senior person from government retired and instead of enjoying post retirement life he continues to talk about what he had done when he was holding that position. He spends entire day in frustration as part of him is still not able to accept that he no longer holds that position.

My friend who is a school teacher, once told me when parents come for meeting many of them do not come as parents they come as business owner, VPs, CEOs etc.

Many a times while traveling in the local trains of Mumbai, I have observed that few ladies continue to wear their office identity cards till they reach home. I used to wonder why are they still wearing i-cards in crowded trains, when interacted with such people I realized they are extremely proud of their association with those companies. They are doing amazingly well and they have been working hard to accomplish their dreams.

But this is how professional identity can take over you completely without even you consciously recognizing it. Your confidence, self worth, self esteem, your entire value gets linked to that tag so much so that you just cant think beyond that role, you eventually stop exploring who you truly are, you stop living your life to its fullest, you limit your possibilities of becoming someone much greater and different than these tags.

I would like to share my journey with respect to this topic. I always wanted to work with big brands, at good post. I loved my corporate identity. I enjoyed it. I loved all social status and benefits associated with it. But few years later there came a point where this identity started becoming my limitation. I realized my life is more than this job but I am not living it. Though I had faith in the Universe and confidence on my abilities to create the life of my dreams, giving up corporate identity made me nervous and insecure. Simple thought of living without these labels used to scare me a lot. Eventually when I made peace with these thoughts and feelings I could leave my job, but insecurities and inner struggle remained for few weeks even after I leaving the job.

Being sensitive, intuitive and energy reader person I could absorb all unsaid things, I could read what was going on in people’s mind, I could read between the lines. Most of the time I ended up getting extremely hurt by judgments of people around me, I just couldn’t deal with it. Common comments I used to get to hear at that time was “hey now you are free, good yaar entire day at home relaxing, superb life”; “hey now you are at home only, so much free time so what you do to kill the time” “hey why did you leave the job?” “hey how much do you actually earn?” “Really ! do people pay to you for all these things?”

Those were frequently asked questions. They were never questions though! J

Just because I was self employed I was expected to be available at any time, I was expected to adjust my schedule, nobody truly understood depth of whatever I was doing - swimming coaching, writing and spirituality/mind training activities under brand name Urja Wellness and Joy. Whatever I was doing never perceived as important activity, never perceived as a career, after all I was no more associated with big brands, I was not doing so called ‘full time corporate job’ hence from the point of view of corporate women around me I was being just a housewife or less ambitious or into part time career or hobby zone!.

(By the way there is no term called as ‘I am just a housewife’ in fact this is really a big thing. Anyways that is all together a different topic.)

Initial few weeks I used to get affected badly by these judgments and comments. It used to trigger insecurities within me and I used to end up talking about my plans about future, about what am I doing currently, about my past corporate tags and what I did there …..blah blah blah

I am my worst critic. The voice of critic inside me actually set me free. It said hey girl what are you trying to do? Are you trying to justify your choices? Why? There is no need to do that. No matter how much you talk people will understand and hear what they want to hear. Let them be comfortable with their judgments and conclusions about you. Are you trying to establish new identity? why? There is absolutely no need. Why are you talking about past and future plans? Share with people who can really understand what you do. Girl, only true freedom is to live without any identity tags! So just chill and enjoy your work. Direct your energy to make improvements in whatever you are doing. There is no need to be afraid of society and no need to be scared of judgments. You know what you are and what you are doing. That is enough. Just remember this beautiful quote you have read on internet ‘Not everyone will understand your journey. That’s fine. Its not their journey to make sense of. It’s yours.’

Later I quickly settled into my new identity but without being obsessed about it, without being dependent on it, without making it my whole and soul, without letting it take over my entire life.

Today I do introduce myself as co-founder of Urja wellness and joy brand (now Unicorn Insight), swimming coach and writer. I do give past references but not out of insecurities or fear.  Today I am totally detached from these tags. I am blessed to have partners who share the same philosophy towards work.

We just love what we do, we are ambitious, we set targets, we constantly think how we can contribute in better manner, we work hard. But at the same time we are detached from our new professional identities. We operate out of joy. Where there is joy, success and money flows easily.

This approach gives us freedom. Freedom to make new choices! Freedom to explore new possibilities!

Charuta Rajadhyaksha 

Co-founder of Unicorn Insight 

www.unicorninsight.com