The beliefs we carry: When does an experience become our identity?
My daughter changes her mind constantly. One day she wants to be a performing dancer, the following day a painter. The next minute, she is making “bad choices” and being a total tyrant. In the next breath, she declares she hates sausages, despite eating them every week, and chooses Quorn dippers instead.
One day, she loves going to the playground, jumping in puddles and attempting the monkey bars, until she has a big fall resulting in a nosebleed. It only takes two weeks before she wants to try again.
On the way to Penistone Show, walking down the trail, she is an outdoorsy girl who enjoys wandering through the woods. On the way back to the car, she is seemingly a baby who only wants to be carried or is screaming for her pushchair to be with us.
None of these experiences define her identity, so why is it that, as adults, we allow a single experience to stick with us?
Someone I worked with had been put on a performance improvement plan early on in their career. A moment that would go on to define the next 10 years of their working life, driving an incredibly hard work ethic that ultimately led to burnout. They didn't know when to stop working.
I had to use a simple analogy of a painter and decorator. At the end of the day, he'd have to clean his tools and leave the property, returning the next morning to pick up where he'd left off. There couldn't be a popping back after tea scenario or doing a bit more when the kids had gone to bed.
His theory was that the to-do list could be attacked during those times. For what? More work to be piled onto it, rather than having a difficult conversation about priorities, pushing back and establishing better boundaries around when work could realistically get done.
Children learn to change their minds. Adults turn their past experiences into their identity.
Someone has a bad manager once and decides they can never be managed again. Another person works in a very inflexible workplace that doesn't value family time, so decides the only option is to start a business. Someone else experiences a workplace that wants everything channelled through AI and develops the belief that all businesses are doomed and AI is taking every job.
You only have to look at how AI has been used at IKEA, where repeatable jobs have been replaced without losing its workforce, instead redirecting people into an even better customer service department because their core value was 'people first'. The result? More sales, happier staff and happier shoppers.
I worked with someone recently who was adamant they didn't want a target-driven role after previously working in an aggressive recruitment agency that had caused them a lot of anxiety. We unpacked this belief and explored whether the targets themselves were really the issue, or whether it was the type of culture in which they were set.
This led to a much healthier discussion about the types of culture that would suit them. Realistic and motivating targets didn't seem quite so bad after all.
We have a bad experience, decide it means something about who we are, and then repeat that belief long after we've become a different person.
Let's remember that we were once children who changed our minds multiple times a day.
What if the experience you're holding onto isn't a reflection of who you are, but simply something that happened to you?
Through career coaching, we can unpack the beliefs that have been shaped by past experiences, challenge whether they still serve us and explore what might be possible if we stopped allowing them to dictate our next move.
You don't have to keep making career decisions based on a version of yourself that no longer exists.
If you're ready to challenge the beliefs holding you back and explore what you really want from work, let's have a conversation. Book a career coaching discovery call with Lucy at The Career Remote® and let's start unpicking what's possible.