Role and identity

Has it always been so hard for me to transition back into my work role after the summer holidays? Or is it more difficult this year?​

Of course, being in a freelance leadership consulting role usually means that one’s clients need a week or so to settle back into their own roles before seeking out coaching or consultation at the start of the new year. Meaning that the main activities constituting the consulting/coaching role (making appointments, seeing clients, keeping notes) only really start in the third or fourth week of January. Until then we are thus largely bereft of our usual role-activities as a bulwark against our own anxiety.

Side note 1: In South Africa, being in the Southern Hemisphere, our entire society shuts down over December because these are also our summer holidays. So the symbolism of a new year on 1 January is even more pronounced as everyone has taken off from work at the same time, and everyone is going back to work at more or less the same time.

Side note 2: The anxieties I always face at the beginning of the year as a consultant, and more or less regardless of how much work I have managed to line up for the new year before the old year ended, are as follows:

• Will I have work this coming year?
• Will my old clients contact me?
• What if no one calls?
• What if a big client pulls out because of unforeseen circumstances?

Now, this year, seeing that the transition from end-of-year contemplation mode to start-of-year action mode, feels more daunting than in the past, I am realising once again the strong link between role and identity. If I am not doing the activities constituting my role, can I still call myself (read: identify as) a coach, consultant, psychologist?

But there is more to this. During the lockdown, I started to pursue an old dream of writing fiction. And towards the end of last year, I decided to dedicate a significant portion of my time to writing my first Afrikaans novel. Am I then a writer?

So the connections between role and identity and transition and activity are becoming clear: Am I my role? Or more than? Or less? Or different than? Can I be in two roles simultaneously? If I don’t do the activities linked to my role, can I still identify with the role? When I transition between roles, who am I? And if I leave one professional role for another, what does it do to the many role-relationships I was in?

In the ever-shifting landscape of multiple roles and complexities and expectations and prescriptions and relationships, where am I? Who am I? Who ought I to be? Who do I yearn to be? Who do I allow myself to be?

These to me seem useful questions to explore before we all settle down and find our feet again in our familiar roles and routines.