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In this episode, I explore a powerful yet often overlooked topic: enmeshment, which is the blurring of boundaries between work and self-worth. Drawing from personal experiences, client stories, and thought-provoking insights, I examine how tightly intertwining our identity with our career can impact our self-esteem and overall well-being.
You'll gain practical strategies to disentangle your sense of self from your professional achievements, identify where enmeshment may be showing up in your life, and take steps to cultivate a balanced, fulfilling identity that thrives beyond the workplace. This is your invitation to redefine your worth and live authentically.
Mentioned in This Episode:
Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant. Learn more about the book here.
Transcript:
Does your work define your worth? Is your self-esteem so intertwined with your work performance that you don't know where one starts and the other ends? If this sounds familiar, you may be experiencing something called enmeshment. And that is what we're going to be talking about on today's episode of Lead Well with Jacqui. Welcome.
This is a topic I’ve been wanting to address for ages. A few years ago, I read Think Again by Adam Grant, where he talks about the connections we make with our work from an early age and how that can inform our self-identity. At the time, I found it interesting. Since reading it, I’ve come to realise that I’ve experienced enmeshment at several points in my life and career. And the more clients I see, the more I recognise this as a very common phenomenon in today’s workforce. So, I want to bring this to you so that you can start to cast a discerning lens over your own relationship with your work and see if there might be an opportunity to disentangle a little bit.
So, what is enmeshment? Enmeshment occurs when a relationship becomes so interconnected that your personal boundaries become permeable and unclear. In the context of our careers, enmeshment happens when an individual’s professional identity takes over their personal identity. We become so closely tied to our job that our personal interests, hobbies, and social interactions take a backseat. Our work becomes the most important thing in our life, and not just that – it becomes our sole source of self-worth, joy, pride, and frustration.
The challenge with doing this is that when we give our work so much power, we allow it to have a really significant detrimental impact on us when it changes. It creates a cycle. We pour all our energy into our careers – whether that’s a particular job, a specific industry, or even being a parent. It becomes our single greatest source of joy, satisfaction, and pride. If you’re particularly driven or feel your work is your calling – this is very common in fields like medicine – we start to identify with that work so deeply that it becomes part of our personality. If we no longer do that job, we no longer understand who we are.
We see this often in medical professions, for example, where doctors continue to work even when they’re due for retirement, only stopping when their health no longer allows it. I have several clients at the moment going through the retirement process. Many of them question, "What will I be? What impact will I have if I’m not doing this work?" One client, for example, said to me, “I don’t have much time before I retire, and I need to have the impact I want now, because when I retire, it’s all over.” They’re so closely connected to their job that it’s hard to see any other value beyond that role.
One of the greatest risks of enmeshment is the connection between work and self-worth. I help people understand that you are just as worthy on a day when you do nothing – when you are not productive, when you just binge-watch Netflix – than on a day when you accomplish something amazing at work or crush it with a project. Your worth does not change based on your productivity. You are equally valuable when you make mistakes. And when I say this, which I do often, it can be a challenging message to hear. But I feel really passionate about it because it’s something I’ve struggled with personally.
For years, I worked in the corporate world in marketing and never connected my pay or income to my self-worth. That was, until I did. I was working hard, hitting goals, and receiving positive reinforcement, but I wasn’t spending time with my kids. Work was who I was. Then, I learned that people who reported to me and even peers at the same level were earning significantly more than I was. Though I was earning enough and didn’t need more, the knowledge really shook me. It made me feel like I wasn’t as valuable as I thought. But in hindsight, I’m grateful for that experience because it helped me break the cycle of enmeshment and understand my value beyond what others placed on me.
Historically, our identities have been shaped by our jobs. Take the surname Smith, for example, which has its roots in occupations like blacksmith or gunsmith. Our jobs used to define us, and even today, we ask children what they want to be when they grow up, planting the seed that our job is our identity. We see it in our everyday lives – at social events or networking functions, the first question is often, “What do you do for work?” And from that, we make judgments, which helps us assess where someone fits in the pecking order. But these judgments are false metrics. Your job does not determine your value. Whether you're a neurosurgeon or someone with a "basic" job, your worth as a human isn’t defined by your career.
To disentangle our identity from our work, we need to practice self-reflection and self-compassion. Assess where your motivations and self-worth come from. A trigger, like something happening at work, may indicate enmeshment. For leaders, moving from "telling" to "asking" can also trigger feelings of worthlessness if they feel their value is tied only to their role as an expert. Once you’ve reflected, consider your core values and how they relate to things outside of work. What relationships or activities outside of work give you value and joy? Reconnect with these parts of your life to expand your sense of identity.
Setting healthy boundaries is crucial. Be intentional about how much time and energy you give to work. It’s not about reducing work hours but recognisng that work doesn’t define you. Create more room in your life for things that matter – whether that’s time with family, a new hobby, or personal goals. It’s also important as leaders to see our team members as whole people, not just their roles, and give feedback focused on behavior rather than personal character.
Enmeshment is common, but we can start with ourselves to identify who we truly are beyond our work. Take that power back and start disentangling your identity from your career.
Listen to the audio on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
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