Dear Kimberly: How To Exist Between Two Work Worlds

Kimberly McGlonn is back with gentle wisdom to help you navigate life’s tough situations. Have a Q for Kimberly? Fill out the form here and we’ll do our best to feature it in an upcoming column.

Dear Kimberly: How do you exist between two professional worlds when your heart lives in one place but responsibility demands you stay in another — that is, when who you are and who you need to be don’t fully align? — Shifting Identities

Dear Shifting Identities,

First, know that you’re not alone, and that you’ve come to the right place — I personally have shifted my professional identity throughout my life, and continue to wear multiple hats (more on that later). The position you’re experiencing is one that a lot of us find ourselves in, particularly as the economy may require us to have more than one work responsibility; a lot of us shift between roles simply because we have to, to pay the bills. But I think what you’re getting at is the tension between having a primary work responsibility, our nine-to-five, while also having a creative pursuit or dream that we’re tending to in the margins of our lives. And that’s the place where we feel divided — it can feel overwhelming and exhausting. It’s a struggle I know well, as someone who has felt like the fictional Tarzan, hanging on one professional vine while trying to reach for the next one. It requires a lot of energy (which is super exhausting) and it can absolutely strain our capacities.

What I’ve learned is that there’s real power in arriving at this kind of opportunity to assess your “why.” Doing so will keep you from moving without a sense of direction. Which is why, even as you’re juggling so many things at once, it’s so important to remember to pace yourself in all of that movement. For me, pacing myself in the movement between identities looks like adopting practices I hold sacred: spending time in a garden, honoring time with my dearest friends, journaling. For other people that might look like making sure you’re taking care of your personal health by working out or having a routine that gives you time to think, or a spiritual practice. And I think the most important thing is to avoid what we’re so often conditioned to do, which is to dehumanize ourselves and deny the fact that even as our minds are thinking of new plots, we actually live in very fragile bodies. It’s so important to treat ourselves as if we are precious. (We are.)

Having that kind of discipline will help you be protective not just of your time, but of yourself. For me, some of the things that have been really helpful are really evaluating my networks — thinking about who can help me, whether I need support as a parent or support with day-to-day tasks — and being married differently to my calendar, not overdoing it and taking on any more than I can. That kind of discipline leads to clarity about what you value the most. And that’s a very useful barometer for how we’re designing our lives and why.

You will be called to new things, new identities, new dreams, new titles. As you’re thinking about the movement between worlds, remember: You have to be judicious about what you’re holding onto, and remember why you’re deciding to let go of something. It’s okay, while you’re toggling between worlds, to feel fear and excitement.

Whatever you’re changing up doesn’t change that who you are is bigger than the thing that you did. They’re never the same. Whatever your title, you are still you: kind, curious, goofy, down-to-earth … whatever your core traits may be. I learned that as I wound down my fashion endeavors, Grant Blvd and Black Ivy Thrift. I had to remember that while I was grieving the end of those chapters, it wasn’t the end of my life. I was still alive! And the truth is that as we move between identities, we don’t get reduced, we get made bigger. We don’t lose who we are because we change titles. You still get “credit” for the time you devoted to your other roles, even if you’re not leading with those skills anymore. In fact, looking back on my own trajectory, I can see how being a classroom teacher set me up to be everything else since then: a designer, an entrepreneur, an author, a public speaker, a vice president, a founder … and so much more.

Whatever you’re going after, stay persistent — even if you’re afraid, do it anyway! (Sometimes we do our best work when we’re afraid.) I know that’s not easy. The most conscientious of us may feel like we’re being disloyal to our current employer, or ungrateful for all that we have, greedy for wanting something else. But you are responsible only to yourself, and your own morality — those are your north stars, more than any employer or any roadmap you may have dreamed up long before you evolved into who you are now. You will always be all the things you have been — they just get rolled into a new manifestation. Let go of the idea that there are walls we have to construct to make our stories look or feel neat for other people. That’s reductive, stressful, unhelpful, and unnecessary. Instead? Accept yourself in multiplicities. The ROI in doing so is high.

With courage and care,
Kimberly