Sunday, September 5, 2021

Who You Are Is Greater than What You Do

Attaching your self-worth to your performance isn't always best for your mental health

By Dora Komlodi

When someone asks you to tell them about yourself, how would you answer? I would say that I am a university student studying business, I’m on the varsity volleyball team at my school, and I’m currently a summer intern at CLAC.

While these facts all accurately describe what I am doing, they certainly don’t encompass who I am. The classic identifiers—employee, athlete, student, etc.—serve an important role in their descriptions, but unfortunately get tangled up with our actual identity. Who am I without volleyball, without school, and without work?

When we view ourselves through the lens of our various titles, we run the risk of attaching our sense of self-worth to our performance in these activities. When we get caught up in the lie that “you are what you do,” our identity becomes rooted in how we perform and whether we succeed. This mindset can be awesome; when work is going well and we’re succeeding at all the things that we do, it’s easy to feel good about ourselves and live with confidence and joy when we’re at optimal performance in these aspects of life.

However, I think we can all agree that life is definitely not always a walk in the park. Stuff happens. You lose your job, you get a bad grade, you break your foot, or a global pandemic hits, and your world is completely rocked. Maybe some of these things are in your control, but most just aren’t.

When things like this happen, and your entire identity is rooted in what you do, I’d reckon that life would start looking pretty grim, pretty fast; your sense of self-worth would be on a downward spiral, opening yourself up to a plethora of other problems, including burnout or mental health issues. Maybe you’ll be able to recover come the next success, but your life will become a blind rollercoaster ride with uncontrollable highs and lows.

This, then, begs the question: Where should your identity be rooted if not in what you do?

To answer this, you have to go back to who you are independently of what you do. Think of the unique strengths and gifts that you bring to your work, to school, and to your family. Think of the reasons why you are doing what you are doing. Chances are that the work you are involved in stems from who you are at your core—work is merely an avenue to use your unique strengths and gifts for the betterment of society.

While we use the qualities that make us who we are in the things that we do, the things that we do (and our level of perceived success in them) are not who we are. This is a liberating acknowledgement; it is exhausting and painful to live a life where our identity is inextricably linked to how we perform.

And that is why unions are so important—CLAC members are valued beyond their capabilities in the workplace. Mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health is prioritized when bargaining a collective agreement and a positive work life is cultivated through benefits, vacation time, and reasonable work hours. When a healthy balance is struck between work and life, it is much harder to confuse your identity with what you do.

So the next time something doesn’t go the way you planned, and you didn’t meet the expectations that you set for yourself or were set for you, remember that who you are is greater than what you do.

Who You Are Is Greater than What You Do

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