How Your Job Shapes Your Identity

How does the job you’re in right now make you feel about yourself? For most people, being in a job you love is the dream. It’s an attainable dream—but only a lucky few will be in a job they love for all of their working lives. For the rest of us, we’re likely to have many jobs; some good, some not so good. There will be times when we’ll be happy to identify with what we do for a living, and with our employer, and other times when it’s just a means to an end. Either way, your job and identity are inextricably linked.

After all, work is what pays the bills and that’s critical to our sense of self too. Apart from the financial impact of being out of work, it can devastate our sense of identity and our role within our family, community, and friendship group.

We align ourselves with what we do. In the charity sector you align with the organisation and the cause. But don’t forget, your job and identity may be linked, but your job is not your identity. Getting too emotionally invested can lead to burn out.

Here’s how your job shapes your identity.

What do we mean by identity?

Our identity is shaped by many things including our nationality, ethnic group, age, appearance, upbringing, education, cultural interests, talents, hobbies, language and religion. They all come together to make us who we are in the eyes of others.

The things that are most significant to our identity will change over time. We acquire new personality traits, new interests, new defining attributes—and these all shape what our identity becomes when we enter different points in our lives.

What we do for a living is a big part of it

If you work full-time, then in a week you’ll spend more time at work than with your partner or children.

And work-related problems can affect our physical, emotional and mental health. Work stress can bleed into all areas of our lives. It can affect our closest relationships and yet, at the end of the day, most of us will barely remember any of the details that seemed so important at the time.

The question, ‘so, what do you do?’ is all about your job and identity

If you’re not happy with your job, you probably dread this question. But when work’s good, your answer is who you’re proud to ‘be’. And it’ll instantly create all sorts of images in the mind of the person asking.

Saying you work for a charity will often lead others to think you’ll be ‘nice’, motivated by a desire to ‘do good/make a difference’ and that money’s not your biggest driver in life (or possibly that you don’t need to earn a lot).

But does working for a charity make you inherently ‘nice’?

A high proportion of people working in charities are motivated by the cause; that’s definitely true. It’s also true that most people in the voluntary sector don’t put salary or status above all else in their career. And if you want your work to make a difference to the lives of others, then you’ll find like-minded people working in the voluntary sector.

However, that may be as far as you can afford to generalise. Charities compete for the best talent; it’s not about being ‘nice’ so much as it’s about being effective and the best person for the job.

If you go into the charity sector thinking your boss will be less demanding—then you’ll be disappointed. There are brilliant, inspirational bosses who’re also tough and set high standards. True, they’ve chosen to work for a charity and that can say something about the kind of person they are, but it doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily be ‘easier’, or ‘nicer’.

Your specific job shapes your identity as well; whether you’re a fundraiser, work in IT or in a caring position. Getting better at your job means honing the skills or attributes that made you right for a role in the first place. For example, if you get a job in fundraising because you’re good with people and persuasive, the longer you do that job the more these attributes will shape your identity—in and outside of work.

A logical vs a haphazard hierarchy

It’s also true that where your role sits within the charity can dictate whether you work in a logical, or a haphazard hierarchy—something that can shape who you are inside and outside of work.

For example, a legal affairs division may have a logical hierarchy; where everyone’s clear about what they need to do to move up. A PR or creative division is more likely to have a haphazard hierarchy where promotion depends upon an alchemy of attributes including achievements, personality and who you know. Neither structure is necessarily better than the other. We may also prefer one to the other at different times in our lives. But a haphazard hierarchy carries an inherent insecurity which can breed anxiety; a feeling that work, and life, is a popularity contest you need to win.

But in the end, there’s very little you can do about how you’re seen by others. What they think about your job and identity is out of your hands. It can, however, be worth thinking about how the role you’re in right now makes you feel about yourself.

Are you happy to answer the question, ‘so what do you do?’ Or do you dread it? Does your job build on your strengths? Or does it bring out the worst in you? If it’s the latter, then you owe it to yourself to try to either make a career change—or find ways to cope with your working day better, so that how your job shapes your identity isn’t damaging to your own sense of who you are outside of work.

Think you might need to invest in a new career? Find out which  charities are hiring today.