Who Am I Now? Releasing the Role, Reaffirming Yourself

West Fork, Carson River – 2017

Sierra Nevada, CA

Beyond the Title

There’s a quiet but deeply personal moment that arrives for many professionals after a long career: the title fades away.

The email address goes dormant. The office is closed. The role is no longer.

For some, the question begins to arise: Who am I now, without the title I’ve had for so long?

The Role Was Real, but It Wasn’t Your Whole Story

For decades, one aspect of your external identity may have been expressed through your profession: doctor, teacher, executive, founder, principal, or partner.

That title earned respect. It carried responsibility. It shaped how others saw you, and to a degree, how you saw yourself.

Letting go of that title is not a rejection of what it meant. Indeed, it is worthy of honor. It’s an acknowledgment that there is more to you than the title that described your role.

Your Internal and External Identity Was Expressed Through Your Role, Not Defined By It

Your role reflected your personal qualities and character traits, such as: 

 Personal Qualities

• Adaptability, creativity, empathy, patience, confidence, organization.

 Character Traits

• Integrity, honesty, courage, humility, perseverance, fairness. service, precision, leadership, care.

They do not fade, they remain deeply within you. An important element of your transition is your reflection upon and reaffirmation of these qualities and character traits.

This stage of life offers a new opportunity to express them in different ways that reflect your internal identity, your character, as well as your purpose in life.

Who You Are Has Always Been Much More Than What You Did

When the external affirmation fades, it’s natural to feel a loss of external identity. But your character endures and is manifested as you express yourself in new ways.

Now, with more time and less structure, you have the ability to reaffirm that core: the part of you that existed long before your role, and will remain long after.

This Is Not an Ending. It is a Reaffirmation of Self.

Releasing professional identity can feel like an erasure. But it’s really a renewal.

Return to curiosity. Return to values. Return to the deeper “you” that might have been quieted in years of professional focus.

Ask yourself: What did I set aside? What parts of me want to come alive now?

Now you’re free to shift. To explore. To express other dimensions of yourself.

Grieve the Role. Celebrate the Self.

It’s okay to feel sadness. That title held meaning. It was earned. Its absence may feel like silence.

But you are not that silence. You are Who still speaks.

Let yourself honor what that identity gave you, and gently set it down so your mind can be fully open to designing a new lifestyle.

Creative Reaffirmation

This stage is about reaffirming who you are.

You may discover parts of yourself that were waiting: the writer, the grandparent, the musician, the mentor.

And in them, you may find that the truest parts of your professional self, the ones that mattered most, are still present. They are now expressed in quieter, more personal ways.

PS: Would you like to learn more about how to transition successfully from your career? I provide services to physicians, non-medical credentialed professionals, corporate executives, businessmen and entrepreneurs that are tailored to their specific needs. Click here to request an introductory conversation.

If you would like to learn about another way that I can guide you, check out this brief video that describes my unique online course: 

 The Practice Transition Course for Physicians. _TM     

"Exuberance”– 2017

Sierra Nevada, NV