The Loss of Identity with Leaving a Career

Kristen Letchworth
Oct 28
2 min read

A couple years ago, amidst a lot of personal change and disruption, I listened to a podcast episode entitled "How to Shape Your Identity and Goals". It was an episode of the Huberman Lab podcast with guest Dr. Maya Shankar. I'll link the episode at the bottom of the newsletter, but it hit so close to home that I started writing down quotes and notes.

As I talked about in my previous newsletter, I had left my corporate career and was on sabbatical.

I was no longer a manager, no longer a consultant, no longer associated with companies whose names carried some inherent sense of value. I couldn't talk about the problems I was solving, the places I was traveling, or the executives I just presented to.

I was just me, without the safety cover of titles and accolades.

In the podcast episode, Dr. Shankar talks about how she was a young prodigy violinist, whose career ended at 15 from a hand injury. She needed to redefine her identity in order to move forward. She is now a cognitive scientist who has gone on to do great things in the field. In the episode, she reflects, "I have learned, in my adult life, to anchor my identity to why I do the things I do, rather than what I do. I find this to be a much more durable, reliable relationship."

That hit a nerve with me. What I do was changing, I had already made that decision. But now I could choose to redefine my why.

I needed to figure out who I was now. I made note of things that interested me, of when I found myself getting excited talking about something, of what priorities seemed to be rising to the top. I always knew I wanted to help people, but how specifically? Some of my top strengths and values are empathy, analytical thinking, and individualization. I decided I could help people by creating a safe space to discuss their feelings, by helping them see and process their patterns and outcomes, and by encouraging them to create their own unique path in life.

Once you know your why, you can create any number of versions of what and how.

Dr. Shankar's advice to people who feel a loss of identity is to discover their "throughline". She asks, "what are the underlying features of the things you used to do that you absolutely loved and can you find the expression of that elsewhere?".

Even if you step away from a certain career or industry, how can you find a new application of what's meaningful to you?

As for me, being a Career and Purpose Coach is this iteration of my why. It may not be the expression that I chose for the rest of my life, but that's the fun part: you can evolve and tailor your purpose to any phase of your life.