How To Detangle Your Work and Personal Identity
Confront the enmeshment problem to become a happier, more well-rounded person.
The restaurant table was packed with fellow finance employees. We’d spent little time outside of the office together. The perpetual grind of creating reports, managing costs, and navigating a gauntlet of tasks had completely consumed our time and energy.
My coworker Sarah, a pretty 30-something with brown hair, who was great at her job, got quite tipsy. And even in this loose, drunken state, she seemed incapable of talking about anything unrelated to work. She often worked long benders and, infamously, slept under her desk on one occasion. I’d tried to get to know her a few times as we collaborated often. But she felt so one dimensional and consumed.
I was sad for her. She clearly didn’t have much else going on in her life. And, unfortunately, this describes many people I’ve met in my career.
Famed economist, Karl Marx, wrote of this in his 1844 essay, Estranged Labor, saying, “External labor, labor in which man alienates himself, is a labor of self-sacrifice, of mortification.” He explained that our over involvement in work results in the loss of our sense of self. It becomes a form of self-objectification that is insidious and often unnoticed.
French researchers developed a measure of objectification in the workplace, measured as the degree to which a person feels like a tool for their company, rather than a sentient and independent human being. With those who scored high in objectification, people reported higher burnout, depression, job dissatisfaction, and even more cases of sexual harassment.
This play is painfully familiar
I often sat in on our all-hands VP meetings, where they sat at a long obsidian table debating consequential decisions. I was one of the sidekicks sitting on the side taking notes. The meetings made for remarkable people watching.
As I looked out across the table, I saw drawn faces, sunken eyes, tense shoulders from stress and realized, “These are not happy people. This cannot be my future.” It was one chapter of many, in the long process of realizing corporate success wasn’t the utopia I’d thought it was. The incredible burdens and responsibilities they carried were palpable. It was obvious their paychecks came at the psychological price Karl Marx warned us of.
Therapist, Salvador Minuchin, introduced the psychological concept, enmeshment, which describes how family members can become too close to each other, allowing their identities to blur. A perfect example is a parent and child becoming more like friends rather than parent-child, causing them both to lose the best parts of that relationship. A parallel phenomenon happens with careers, as you suddenly forget your job isn’t your identity.
When I worked at my last corporate job, our budgeting manager, John, was one of the highest performing employees I’d ever met. He was brilliant and had a sled dog’s work ethic. He landed an annual promotion for five years in a row, and was eventually a senior director at only 33 years old. One day I came in and learned John was taking a hiatus. His younger brother, Chris, who’d just started working there and who looked up to him so much, looked solemn when I asked him, “What happened?”
Chris said, “My brother stood too close to the sun for too long. He needed sometime to reassess things.” Fast forward one year and John was gone permanently. He took a more balanced job as a mortgage broker. He isn’t making mid six figures like his old job, but he goes home at a reasonable hour everyday, and is much happier.
We met for coffee and he told me, “My whole life was that job. I knew I needed a change or I’d eventually be on my deathbed resenting the life I’d lived.”
Solutions to address enmeshment
One strategy is to borrow from religion and practice sabbath keeping, the ancient practice of taking time away from work to connect with yourself (and God). At least one day a week should be spent not thinking of work, checking your emails, or worrying about imminent deadlines.
You can take this a step further by taking an actual vacation where the same conditions apply. Spend a week at a resort, and do nothing related to your job. Don’t check your email. Don’t take a call. Have the audacity to fully disconnect. Per the Harvard Business Review, around 50% of managers feel burned out at any given time. Taking a vacation is proven to reduce depression and increase positive emotions, but it’s nullified by doing a ton of work while traveling.
Consider reframing the language you use when talking about work. Saying, “I am an accountant” sends the signal that your profession is a component of your identity. And to some extent — it is. But by saying, “I work as an accountant” you reframe your orientation to that job as a secondary practice in your life.
Lastly, don’t let your only friends be people you work with. I have a programming friend who is a great guitarist, another who works in HR and is the epitomized family man, and an insurance friend who is an amazing golfer. But I also have my fellow writer friends, who I rely on to preserve my sanity and share frustrations and insights with. Remember that non-work friends boost wellbeing.
The takeaway
The problem in all this begins early in our lives. Exceptionalism is put on a pedestal, and our need to be successful often leads us to this miserable identity blur.
Dr. Arthur C. Brooks, professor of management at Harvard University, found many of his students confessing to him that they’d rather be successful than happy. The enmeshment of their identity with work is but a natural extension of this mentality, rather than a fluke bad habit.
And so perhaps this puts the onus on parents seeing this. Most of you want the best for your children and push them to be great and live up to their potential. But you should consider balancing this drive against instilling a success-at-all-costs policy.
To the remainder of us in the thick of it, remember that a job is a job. It’s important. But it’s not everything.
Consider the wisdom of being a well-rounded person, and knowing that your value isn’t tied to the size of your paycheck, or your seniority on an org chart. Life has so much more to offer by way of friends, meaning, adventure, fun, intellectual growth, and more.
I'm a former financial analyst turned writer out of sunny Tampa, Florida. I began writing eight years ago on the side and fell in love with the craft. My goal is to provide non-fiction story-driven content to help us live better and maximize our potential.