When leaving a job is more than just leaving a job

If we haven’t talked in a few years, this new business that I co-founded with Sarah might seem off-brand. You might be confused about how I went from being passionate about gender, global women’s and adolescent health, and the NGO and public sectors to starting a business that focuses on supporting entrepreneurs. 

When my career shifted about four years ago, I felt disillusioned, burnt out, undervalued, and misunderstood. But I thought I was stuck. I didn’t know how I would add value to the world or even who I was if I didn’t work in the global health space. I had moved my family to another continent for a job that had become untenable.

When I was in the darkest part of it all, I felt very alone - but I know I wasn’t. I’m sharing this story today to give anyone who needs it what I wanted: a sense of community and a reminder that even if how we identify is deeply engrained - life is long - identities are allowed to be flexible and change. 

This story starts close to my beginning. I’ll try to make a long story short - but I probably won’t do a good job. 

I grew up in what I call a formerly religious household. My father is an ex-minister and my mother had wanted to be a nun in her youth but didn’t because she wanted children. My godfather was a benedictine monk and my godmother was a Catholic nun. I grew up with my dad holding what we called 'home church' in the formal dining room with two unenthusiastic participants - my brother & me. By the time I was ten, home church had faded away but the values were always there: giving to others, bettering the community, doing things for the greater good, and fighting for what’s right. These were central to (what felt like) every conversation.  

The message I felt growing up was that to live a life worth much of anything, self-sacrifice and ‘silencing myself’ came with the territory. I don't remember it ever being said outright, but it was there. You were your work, your work was for others, and that’s how you had value in the world. By the time I was in high school, subconsciously, my career path felt all but confirmed. 

I now know that blanket acceptance of your identity, especially in adolescence, is called identity foreclosure. With identity foreclosure, you accept the identity that those around you give you, without questioning it or deciding for yourself if you want to keep it. This is what happened to me. My mother was a non-profit executive director turned non-profit consultant and my dad was an ex-minister turned public defender. I never questioned that I would work anywhere else than the non-profit sector.

With identity foreclosure, you accept the identity that those around you give you, without questioning it or deciding for yourself if you want to keep it.

Let’s fast forward to a few years ago. I’ve spent my career to date working broadly in the global health/NGO space. I have found a dream job in Rwanda that is not only in adolescent health and digital products - what had become my niche area of expertise, but where I would also get to use all my strategic and operational experience to open the office and build it from nearly nothing. 

With my move to Rwanda, I felt a wave of relief. Finally, everything I had done - all the internships, jobs with bad bosses and low pay, short-term contracts, and promises of work that didn’t pan out - were worth it. These experiences led me here. I was proud to tell people what I did for work. I felt like I had value. I felt good and worthy because I was in this field and this job. I was living my identity and was happy, energized, and fulfilled. Building an office was scrappy (my happy place) and I was learning a ton working in an area I was passionate about. 

A year later things started to slowly unravel. My honeymoon period was over; the more I tried to ‘fix’ things that I thought weren’t working, the more I felt lost and misunderstood - by others and by myself. My vision of this move to Rwanda being a launch pad to a life of country moves, career stability, and professional growth started to disappear. With my identity so closely tied to my career and, in turn, my self-esteem and confidence intertwined with my success, I also started to unravel.

With my identity so closely tied to my career and, in turn, my self-esteem and confidence intertwined with my success, I also started to unravel.

I believe that if the “stuff” from our youth isn’t dealt with, it always comes back to bite you. This was that identity foreclosure - the premature commitment to my identity as an adolescent without exploration - rearing its head.  

As the job felt increasingly untenable, I had to deal with the clear fact that leaving this job meant more than just leaving the job. I had moved my whole family from London to Rwanda for this job. My husband had quit his job. This was the career step that I had been working towards for 15 years. It was supposed to be the launch of a career trajectory that made sense, and I didn’t have to question what was next anymore. My identity had been fixed and unmovable and I was desperately holding on. Now I had to rethink how I defined myself as a person and work to have an identity that was expansive, changeable, and forgiving.

And so I started the painful and beautiful process of doing that. With this free time, I cried (a lot). I spent time with friends. I read, listened, and wrote. I went to therapy. I felt the grief and pain that comes with moving on from something you love, under less than ideal conditions. I spent a lot of time with myself. I wrote down my values; I wanted to be able to refer to them as a ‘sense-check’ if I ever found myself slipping again. I explored my strengths and the areas I wanted to grow in. I wrote my purpose and 10-year vision to develop a guiding foundation for what was next. 

I learned, and continue to learn, to accept all the parts of who I am. My identity has layers that can be soft landing pad for when life inevitably changes. If one identity no longer fits, I can fall back on the others to get back up again.

In this process, I learned, and continue to learn, to accept all the parts of who I am. My identity has layers. The cognitive scientist Maya Shankar talks about how these layers of your identity can be a soft landing pad for when life inevitably changes. If one identity no longer fits, I can fall back on the others to get back up again.

So with that, here it goes: I’m a small business owner and entrepreneur; I’m an expert in many areas I love; I’m a good and caring friend; I’m a wife, mother, daughter, sister, and aunt; I care deeply about helping to solve big problems through empowering people; and I don’t have to earn my value through “good” work. I am enough just the way I am.