Rediscover who you are beyond the roles, titles, and circumstances that once defined you.
A few years ago, someone asked me what I did for a living. Without thinking, I replied, I’m a lawyer. It was the answer I had given for years. It felt natural; I was proud of it, and that was how I had come to define myself.
And then there was a change in my life: I moved to Denmark, and I was told that my law degree was not enough to practise here. Overnight, the identity I had spent years building felt as though it had disappeared. I felt lost and disoriented.
Now, when I look back, I realise I had not lost who I was. I had just lost a title. And it is important to see the difference.
From a young age, we are taught to introduce ourselves by what we do. We answer with our profession, our qualifications, or our roles. And there is nothing wrong with that, until what we do becomes the only way we define who we are. We must understand that a degree doesn’t define us. Losing a job doesn’t diminish our potential. Retiring doesn’t erase our purpose.
Our life changes; our circumstances change; what doesn’t change is our worth.
I often meet people who are in the middle of a transition. Perhaps they’ve changed careers, moved countries, gone through a divorce, experienced redundancy, or reached a point where they ask, “Who am I now?” This is one of the most difficult questions we face. We spend so much of our lives defining ourselves through the roles we hold that when those roles change or no longer exist, we tend to feel lost.
My own journey taught me what I wish I had understood much earlier. A law degree made me a lawyer. It didn’t make me me. When I could no longer practise law in Denmark, I questioned my identity because I had tied so much of who I was to what I did. But over time, I began to see that the qualities that mattered most had never gone anywhere; I had transitioned. The lawyer became a volunteer. The volunteer became a mentor. The mentor became a coach. The titles changed. The person didn’t.
This is why I believe life transitions, as difficult as they can be, are also invitations. They invite us to look beyond our achievements and ask deeper questions. What truly matters to me? What strengths have always been part of me? What values do I want to live by? Who am I when the labels fall? The answers to those questions are far more enduring than any job title or qualification.
This is why I love coaching. People often come to coaching believing they need to become someone new. It is not about becoming someone different; it is about reconnecting with the person you have always been. Coaching helps you to reconnect to who you really are, and when you reconnect to yourself, choosing your path becomes much clearer.
Life will continue to change. Our circumstances, roles, and titles will also change. The challenge is not to hold on to who we were, but to stay connected to who we are. Perhaps that is what a transition is really asking of us: not to become someone new, but to look beyond what has changed and rediscover what has always been there.
To everyone going through a transition, remember, you haven’t lost yourself. You simply need space to find your way back to Who You Are.
If this resonates, I’d love to hear from you.
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