Detaching Your Identity From Your Job Without Losing Yourself

What happens when your job title no longer feels like a match for who you are? Let's talk about separating your identity from your work, without blowing up your life.

We don’t always choose our job titles. Sometimes they choose us through degrees, default paths, or decades of “sticking with it.”

We tell ourselves it’s just a label. But if you’ve ever lost a job, stepped away from a career, or introduced yourself at a party and flinched… you already know: these titles go deeper than we think.

When you’ve been a teacher, a lawyer, a VP, or just worked in the same field or position of any kind for years, detaching from that role can feel like grief.

Even if the title comes with burnout. Even if you’re halfway out the door already. Even if you’ve changed and it just doesn’t feel like you anymore.

What if your next step isn’t figuring out what to do, but figuring out who you are without the title?

One Step Closer is our no-fluff series on taking small, intentional steps toward a freer, location-independent life — without burning out or starting over.