Who are you, Friend?

Does the question make you uncomfortable?

Is your instinct to name your profession or a familial role (such as Mom or Dad)?

[Sorry, but that's not WHO you are].

For years, my identity was wrapped up in what I did (lawyer). Which changed to "lawyer and mom" after giving birth to my first child.

I started to realize neither was right when breast cancer came along (nothing like facing death to change how you view everything - including yourself).

And yet, I still didn't know how to fully answer that question until a couple of years ago...

As I found myself obsessing over what former colleagues and clients thought of me (now that I didn't practice law).

Coaching felt less respected than law. And I felt like less as a result.

Clearly, I needed to figure out the answer and stop self-identifying as what I did for a living. Because it was holding me back in my new business.

How did I do it? Two main things:

Let go of worrying about what others think.

Not going to lie, this is hard. But hard doesn't mean impossible (I worked with a coach to help me do it more quickly).

I learned that a large part of why I self-identified as a lawyer is because I didn't like being judged by others. And I wore my "lawyer" identity as armor (after all, it's a respected profession).

What I realized was people still judged me - I'd been pretending all along. It was time to accept it and move on.

Reconnect to your values.

Your values are the key to WHO you are. They drive you, are the lens through which you perceive the world and are your inner compass.

That's why values work is almost always a part of the work I do with clients.

To go even deeper into this topic, listen to my conversation with fellow lawyer coach Erin Gerner on the podcast >>>here.

Although we talk primarily about female attorneys (that's who Erin works with), it's applicable to anyone struggling to answer the question above.

XO,

Heather