There’s a moment many accomplished women describe in almost exactly the same words. They’re in a meeting, or on a call, or reviewing their calendar for the week ahead and they realize that the career they’ve worked so hard for doesn’t feel as meaningful as they expected.
Nobody talks about this moment because it doesn’t fit the story you’re supposed to be living. You worked hard. You earned this. You should be satisfied. And so women carry the feeling privately, performing enthusiasm in meetings, updating LinkedIn profiles that tell a version of the truth and reserving the real reckoning for late at night, long runs, or car rides home.
What you’re experiencing has a name. Psychologist E. Tory Higgins calls it the "ought self," the person we believe we should be, based on the expectations of parents, partners, institutions and cultures. And it can take over everything, including the career you’ve spent years building.
The ought self is the voice that says you should want the promotion, the title, the corner office because that’s what success looks like from where everyone else is standing. It’s the version of you that was built for other people’s approval. And for many accomplished women, it’s been driving the car for so long that they’ve forgotten they could ask for directions.
When I first met Emilie at one of my career workshops, she introduced herself as the deputy director of a health services division at a humanitarian organization with nearly two decades in the field, running programs across three continents. She was proud of what she’d built. But lately she’d felt like she was teetering on a tightrope, caught between family commitments and work obligations she couldn’t seem to sustain.
“I love the work I do,” she told me in one of our early sessions. “But I’m not sure the job is good for me anymore. It’s too much. And I don’t want to let anyone down. I should be over the moon.”
But she wasn’t. And she couldn’t understand why.
Emilie’s ought self was running the show. She was the model worker, spouse, parent, and colleague and the effort of maintaining that image had crowded out the question underneath it: what did she actually want?
To help Emilie find out, I had her complete an exercise, mapping out the peaks and valleys of her personal and professional life, looking for patterns in where she felt most alive. What she found surprised her. Her peak moments weren’t always tied to professional achievement. Yes, launching a new health program in East Africa was there. But so was the summer she’d spent volunteering at a refugee camp during graduate school and the time she’d organized an informal mentoring circle for young women entering the humanitarian field.
“I thought my fulfillment came from running things, from being in charge,” she told me. “But actually, I’m at my best when I’m in service to others. When I’m creating space for other people to grow. My title has given me a platform and resources, but it’s also pulled me away from what actually makes me happy.”
This is what happens when we conflate our role with our identity. The role tells us what success looks like from the outside. But identity is something different. It’s who you are when the job title is removed. And that person has been there all along — through every role, every organization, every reinvention.
Your role is what you do. Your identity is who you are. A company owns your role. You own you.
Emilie didn’t need to leave her organization. She needed to redesign her job. She scheduled a conversation with her supervisor and explained where she hoped to expand her skills. By making the case for a six-month trial, she gave herself the runway to create the systems and spaces where people could grow. It wasn’t a promotion. But it was something more valuable.
Six months later, Emilie described feeling like herself at work for the first time in years. Her circumstances hadn’t changed dramatically, but her role finally had room for who she actually was.
This is what becomes possible when you stop letting your job title answer the question of who you are. Your identity isn’t located in any single role. It’s the foundation for everything you have yet to build.
The question is: who are you, underneath all of it? And what do you want to build next?
Dr. Helen Krug von Nidda is a certified executive coach and licensed career counsellor whose insights have been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, and The Muse. She has Doctorate in Education from Columbia University, a Master's in Human Resources Management, and is a Smith College graduate.
