Blog Post 7: What’s Your New Identity?
In my last blog post I shared the first step on how to reinvent yourself. Check it out below in case you missed it.
The next step in figuring out your ‘Me identity’, after accepting and acknowledging that it’s just a baby, and that it’s OK to not have it all figured out yet, is to take stock of where you are in this moment.
Not who you were, but who you are now.
Ask yourself these questions and really take the time to answer them.
What are the values driving you now?
I don't believe that our values never change. I believe that they change and evolve as we evolve.
Also, even if our values remain somewhat the same or similar over time, the priority of those values change depending on the phase of life that you’re in.
For example, a value you may have always had is family, however when you become a Mum, perhaps the priority of that value moves up on your list of core values.
As your values change and priorities shift, so too do your career motivators (which are the things you need to feel satisfied and happy in your career).
What was super important to you in a career before kids might look very different after kids.
For example, a career motivator that I had after university and before kids was adventure, which propelled me to live in New York for 2 years.
2. What are your skills?
And here’s the catch - what are the skills that you ENJOY using?
This was not such an easy question for me to answer, because for so long I was doing things, developing skills, that I became really good at, and if I really took stock and reflected on them, those were things I did not enjoy doing. Skills I did not enjoy using.
I worked in the law. I was good at working in the law, but I never loved working in it.
I was great at matter management, but that was not an enjoyable task for me, even if I was ‘the best’ at it.
Drafting and reviewing contracts. Some people love it. I didn’t.
The attention to detail required also added fuel to the fire on my already heightened perfectionistic tendencies.
Again, I was good at it, but I didn't enjoy it.
I find for MANY of my clients that identify as being a perfectionist, high-achiever or people pleaser, they can do a lot of things. They have developed a lot of skills over the years. But many of those skills they don’t really enjoy using or doing.
3. What are your evolving passions and interests?
I vividly remember when someone asked me what my hobbies were a few years ago. I laughed at them, thinking they may have been joking. They weren’t.
“Hobbies? Interests? Um… does researching things that’ll help a baby with reflux count? Does finding recipes for my toddler to enjoy count?”
I had no idea what my passions and interests were. It seemed like a lifetime ago that I even had my own passions and interests.
4. What is stopping or preventing you from figuring out what you really want?
If you’re anything like me, my thoughts around what I could do next was based on what I had done in the past. Or what I ‘should’ do.
It was very limiting.
I wasn’t allowing myself to explore possibilities because I thought that there weren’t many for me.
This was one of my limiting beliefs.
“I’m a lawyer, I can’t do anything else. I’m not qualified to do anything else.”
“I studied law for 5 years, it would be such a waste of my time to leave the law behind and do something else.”
I saw entrepreneurs and thought to myself, “I don’t know as much as them. I could never put myself ‘out there’ and do what they are doing.”
These sneaky thoughts prevented me from exploring what I truly wanted to do, to be, to contribute to this world.
It was only after I became aware of these limiting beliefs, that I was able to reframe those thoughts and create new thoughts and beliefs that served me. That helped me move towards that next version of myself. That helped me create the career and life I truly wanted.
Only after I explored these concepts and answered these questions with the help of my coach, I was able to take that next step in discovering what would be next for me in my career, and my life.
I created a process and framework that I used first on myself, and since then have used it on many other Mums, to discover what’s next for them.
So what’s next for you?
What is your New Identity?
If you don’t know yet, that’s OK!
Let’s discover yours together.
Love Loren x
