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If asked whether we have a life outside of work, most of us would say yes. But if confronted with the question “Who are you?”, many would probably also give an answer centered around their occupation. “I’m a doctor.” “I’m a journalist.” “I’m an interior designer.”
It’s not surprising that our jobs can feel so central to our identity if we think about how much of our time they take up. But defining yourself only by your job is limiting, not to mention potentially harmful. Curating a life outside of work is your best chance at having an engaging and multifaceted life.
Your Job Doesn’t Define You
At a recent outing with a group of friends, two of them conducted an experiment by separating all of us without explaining why and asking each one the same question: “Who are you?” The idea was to compare all of our answers later and see if we would base them on what we did for a living. It came as no surprise to me that my answer included my love for writing and books, womanhood, creativity, and being a cat mum. I didn’t even think to include my job.
I work in visual graphics for a consulting company; I don’t identify with either graphics or consulting. My job to me is a means to an end, and it defines me no more than the clock defines my cat’s sleep schedule. Instead, my sense of self is rooted in deeper values and passions, which are a lot more relevant to who I feel I am.
This may not be the case for people who do love their jobs or whose work requires a much bigger extent of dedication and investment — lawyers and doctors, for example. I imagine it would be hard to be in a field where lives literally depend on your professional performance unless you’re passionate about your work.
Whether you obsess over your work because you’re genuinely interested in it or because you feel there’s nothing else going on for you, it can become your undoing with a single turn of events. If you were to lose your job, it could put a dent in your sense of self and disorient you to the point of blindness. Who are you outside of your job title? What’s there to do in life if work isn’t one of the options?
For me, losing my job would be devastating for a number of pragmatic reasons: I have no means of supporting myself without a steady source of income, I need an employer to live in the EU, and I really hate job hunting. But even though these are valid struggles, a loss of a job wouldn’t make me question who I am, what my worth or purpose in life is, or what to do with an unexpected influx of free time. I’d still be a cat mum with a blog, a passion for writing, an impressive book collection, and a list of creative hobbies longer than the Great Wall of China. In a sense, I’m safe because my identity is based on the kind of building blocks that temporary unemployment can’t take away from me.
How to Build a Life Outside of Work
I admit I’m a huge advocate for grounding your identity in multiple aspects of life: passions and interests, relationships, and miscellaneous personality quirks. It keeps life so much more vibrant and interesting, not to mention that it reduces the risk of feeling stagnant or burnt out in your professional field.
But how to go about building a life outside of work if you’re new to it?
Get curious. Open yourself to unfiltered curiosity and let it guide you on your path of self-discovery. You don’t know what you’re looking for, and that’s perfectly fine! Give in to the sense of je ne sais quoi in your search for something new. An openness to unknown experiences has an endless potential to enrich your life and keep your identity evolving.
There are two directions you can try out for a start:
1. Passions and interests
The list of fun activities to explore is, quite literally, endless. From creative pursuits to athletic aspirations, life has so much to offer. Have you ever tried pottery? Are you interested in foreign films? Do you enjoy going on nature hikes? Are you a history enthusiast? Are you unbeatable at board games? Does marine life fascinate you?
The thrill of trying something for the first time and learning you absolutely love it is priceless. A diverse weekend itinerary full of creativity and play, park walks with a book, painting, journaling, and movie nights with a cat purring on my chest fills me with the kind of pure, undiluted joy I could never get out of my job. The time spent doing something that deeply aligns with my values and my personality is the true time of content for me.
So get self-exploring. Try things just to see what resonates. And if something doesn’t, you’ve made a core memory and now you have a fun story to tell your friends about that one time you tried scuba diving or attended a basket-weaving workshop.
2. Relationships
It can be really difficult to carve out time for your friends and loved ones when you’re perpetually busy with work. Treat this project of building a life outside of work as an opportunity to spend more time with those important to you. Perhaps make it a weekly ritual to have lunch with your mum on Sundays or start a board game night tradition with your partner.
If you’re making a conscious effort to deprioritize work and make yourself available for other valuable experiences, let those experiences include people that are already in your life and that have missed you while you were too busy working.
You could go even further and try new things together. Has a friend just told you they’re going to take a self-defense class? Join them! Quality time with loved ones doesn’t need to be passive. You can make those core memories together, which will only make them so much more precious.
Get passionate about exploring the world beyond your occupation. It will deepen your understanding of who you are and reveal the parts of yourself you probably didn’t even know were there. Most importantly, I guarantee you it will make life more fun.
Social Connections Through Shared Interests
One of the most helpful observations I’ve ever made is that cultivating a rich and multifaceted personality will act as a magnet for interesting people. This is not to say that you should have hobbies to appear interesting. Be genuine in your passions in life, and watch them act as a social lubricant when you build connections with others.
I recall attending a friend’s birthday party where I met a young woman whose only interest was pole dancing. “Pole dancing is my whole life,” she said proudly, and boy, did she mean it. As admirable as such a level of dedication is, I didn’t exchange more than a couple of dozen words with her throughout the evening. You see, I don’t know the first thing about pole dancing, and she cares about nothing else. Our attempt at conversation never made it past small talk.
It also happens that pole dancing doesn’t lend itself to much conversation, which could probably be said about many other life interests. This makes it all the more important to have a diverse personality if you want to connect with others on a meaningful level — or even just to have a brief good time together.
Think about it: if everyone defined themselves exclusively by their work, not only would relationships largely remain siloed within professions, but also they would be rather one-dimensional. Whereas shared non-work-related interests create abundant opportunities for cross-professional friendships.
In other words, being multifaceted makes you more approachable, relatable, and easier to connect with. It doesn’t just enrich your personal life, but also your relationships with others.
The time spent doing something that deeply aligns with my values and my personality is the true time of content for me.
There’s no denying our jobs are a big part of our lives, whether we’re truly passionate about them, as some are, or merely tolerate them as I do. Whatever the case, fixating on one thing only and making your entire life revolve around it can’t be good for you.
Let yourself discover every wonderful, whimsical aspect of your personality that might currently be hiding behind your work. After all, life is fuller, more surprising, and more connected when we allow our identity to be bigger than just what we do for a living.
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