Who Are You Now? And When Did You Last Check?

I’m not who I used to be.

Sometimes, our identity can be updated without conscious effort.

You marry, and you're someone's partner now. A child arrives, and you're a parent, ready or not. A parent dies, and there’s a gap. The world shifts and you can’t avoid the new shape.

Work rarely does you that favour.

Your title changes. But it doesn’t necessarily force you to update who you think you are. You can be promoted three times and still be operating as the person you were in your first serious job, because nothing in a new job title actually demands you let go of the old self-description. It just sits there, technically out of date, and nobody corrects how you think of yourself only what is not being delivered.

What stuck around past its ‘best before’ date for me was, "I'm the one who's responsible for everything."

It served me well for a time. It made me reliable, someone people could hand things to.

I believed it long after it had stopped being possible. Trying to deliver in a way I no longer could took its toll on me and the people around me.

Being responsible for everything is impossible to scale, and ultimately stops others achieving their potential. Because if you're responsible for everything, nobody else gets to be responsible for anything.

I didn't discover that because a new job title explained it to me. Updated contracts don’t include a clause telling you your identity has expired. I had to notice it for myself, which is exactly why it took so long.

The identities life hands you get updated because reality won't let you avoid it. The identities work needs you to update are optional. They'll happily stay exactly as they are, indefinitely, unless you choose to look at them.

What do you still believe about yourself that might have long since become untrue?

Who Are You Now? And When Did You Last Check?