How can you tell whether your identity has been entwined with your professional life? Look into these questions:

• How much of your work-related thoughts occur outside of the office? Do you often have ideas of work on your mind? Is it challenging for you to engage in conversations that don’t concern your job?
• How would you describe yourself? What percentage of this description is related to your position, title, or workplace? Do you have any further ways you would characterize yourself? How soon do you share your employment with new acquaintances?
• Where do you typically spend your time? Has someone ever told you that you spend too much time at the office?
• Do you engage in activities that don’t immediately utilize your professional talents and skills? Can you regularly use your free time to work out other regions of your brain?
• How would you react if you were unable to pursue your profession any longer? How upsetting would you find this?

You can take steps to start a change if these inquiries make you concerned about how much your work has shaped your identity. You can do this on your own or with assistance from a therapist who is aware of the difficulties experienced by people who work in high-stress professions.

Start small. Start small with your new hobbies outside of work. The aim is to start researching new things you might like to adopt in your lifestyle and identity, not to pledge to anything long-term.

Create a new network. To reactivate your social circles, reach out to your friends and family. You’ll end up having fun and creating a network of friends for yourself. Relationships can be strengthened by catching up with folks through phone, text, or email if you haven’t spoken to them in a while.

Look past your job title. Consider rethinking your relationship to your profession not just in terms of your firm or title but also in terms of your talents that may be applied in a variety of circumstances. For instance, many psychotherapists who become dissatisfied with working with clients discover that their talents are convertible to human resources management or guidance counseling.

Although having a strong occupational identity isn’t inherently bad, it can leave you open to a traumatic identity crisis if you burn out, lose your job, or retire. You can create a stronger and more balanced identity consistent with your beliefs by reclaiming some time for yourself, diversifying your relationships, and engaging in different activities.