Beth Kaplan: When work takes over your life
The following article is a guest contribution by Beth Kaplan and sheds light on a phenomenon many professionals know all too well but rarely name: when your job becomes more than just what you do – it becomes who you are. Kaplan compellingly explores how easy it is to lose yourself in the pursuit of professional success – and how you can begin to reclaim your identity.
Beth Kaplan: When Work Takes Over – And How to Reclaim Your Personal Life
Work should be a part of your life – not the whole story. But what happens when your work identity starts to take over your entire self? When it expands into every corner of life, leaving little room for what makes you you?
This article explores exactly that – and how to find your way back to yourself. Sound familiar? Ever wondered how others manage it? You’re not alone. Read on.
When Work Takes Over – And How to Reclaim Your Personal Life
We rarely notice the exact moment it happens.
At first, it looks like passion. Commitment. Ambition. We throw ourselves into the job, calling it “being in the zone.” We skip lunch or eat at our desks, stay late, send “just one more” email at 11:47 p.m. It feels like going the extra mile. It feels like excellence. But eventually, the extra mile becomes the only road we know how to walk. And suddenly, work isn’t just what we do – it becomes who we are.
I call this phenomenon Workplace Identity Dysmorphia, a concept I explore in depth in my book Braving the Workplace: Belonging at the Breaking Point. It’s more than stress, more than burnout. It’s the gradual erosion of self, caused by over-identification with the professional persona we’ve learned to perform. It’s subtle. It’s praised. And it’s quietly dismantling who we are and how we see ourselves.
At Work, It Looks Like Success. But It Feels Like Disappearance.
This loss of self often starts with the language we use. How often do you hear (or say) at social events: “I’m a VP at [company],” or “I’m a designer,” or “I run ops”? These aren’t just introductions—they’re signals. Over time, our job titles become shorthand not just for what we do, but for who we are.
I see this in leaders, high performers, and managers all the time. And you probably do, too. People start mirroring their workplace’s language, values, and expectations. They nod in meetings even when something feels off. They laugh at jokes that don’t land. They stay silent in moments that matter, to avoid being labeled difficult or emotional.
At first, it looks like professionalism. Adaptability. Maturity. But slowly, it becomes something else.
They begin to lose touch with the parts of themselves that don’t “fit” the role. The curious parts. The creative parts. The critical parts. The values that once guided them. The voice they once trusted. What gets rewarded at work gets repeated. What doesn’t? Quietly buried. Piece by piece, their once-rich identity flattens. They become easier to work with—but harder to recognize, even to themselves.
When your identity becomes overly tied to your role, title, company, or performance, you forget that you were ever more than that. And that narrowing doesn’t just affect how others see you—it changes how you see yourself. This internal conflict creates quiet, ongoing tension. Left unaddressed, it leads to emotional exhaustion, self-alienation, and eventually, identity loss.
Losing Self: Robin’s Story
Take Robin, a tenured professor at a top university. On paper, he was thriving – well-published, respected, frequently invited to panels. But slowly, things began to unravel.
When meeting people outside of work, he no longer said, “Hi, I’m Robin.” He said, “I’m Professor Jones.” At first, it felt like pride. But over time, it became something else – an erasure. His personal identity didn’t just fade into his professional one; it fused with it. Eventually, only the work identity remained.
Robin stopped assigning readings he loved because they were “too radical.” He stopped telling personal stories in lectures because they weren’t “academic” enough. He wasn’t just curating a syllabus – he was outsourcing his sense of self to the institution. And the more he edited, the more praise he got. He was invited to more committees. Applauded for his professionalism. He became the model academic. But the version of himself that once made peace with all that slowly vanished.
His voice became more polished – but less personal. His classroom presence more admired – but less authentic. Students stopped complimenting the uniqueness of his classes, once known for his passion and personality. Robin started wondering not whether he still belonged – but whether the he who once asked that question still existed at all.
The Real Cost of Workplace Identity Dysmorphia
It starts small. A shift in language. A softening of an opinion. But gradually, it leads to a deep internal split. You begin to mistrust your perception. You shrink parts of yourself to fit a mold you didn’t choose. You stop feeling seen – even when everyone’s watching. The more the performance is praised, the more invisible your true self becomes.
And this tension isn’t just emotional – it’s physical. It can manifest as anxiety, insomnia, chronic fatigue, digestive issues. Your nervous system lives in a constant low-grade state of fight-or-flight.
Because the performance is praised, the pain stays hidden. I call this the Mirror Distortion Loop™: the more affirmation you get for a version of yourself that isn’t fully you, the harder it becomes to be yourself.
Left unaddressed, this can resemble Workplace PTSD or adjustment disorder. The result? Hypervigilance, emotional numbing, breakdowns under perceived scrutiny. It’s not just burnout – it’s self-abandonment. You stop asking, “Do I belong here?” and start asking, “Is there even a me left to belong?”
Outside of Work, the Disconnect Grows
This identity blur doesn’t end when the workday does. If anything, it amplifies.
I’ve heard this from clients and research participants:
- “I don’t know who I am outside of work.”
- “I only feel real when I’m answering Slack messages.”
- “I panic when I have downtime—I don’t know what to do with it.”
When we tie our identity to output, we begin to confuse rest with laziness, and presence with performance. Our inner monologue starts speaking the language of metrics and meetings. Our worth feels conditional on productivity.
I dive deeper into this in my article Why ‘Be Professional’ Often Feels Like ‘Be Less You’, where I explore how workplace socialization often requires us to abandon parts of ourselves. The result? Even leisure becomes performative. The mind never leaves the workplace. We’re always “on.” And our bodies begin telling the truth we’ve been trained to silence.
This isn’t professionalism. This is erasure.
Signs You May Be Losing Yourself to Work
Yes, stress and burnout are signs—but they’re not just signs of overwork. They’re signals of misalignment between your inner self and your professional persona.
That misalignment may begin with long hours, but it deepens when:
- You constantly perform a version of yourself.
- You feel pressured to be “on,” even outside work.
- You feel guilt during rest or leisure.
- You struggle to speak honestly or challenge the norm.
- You feel emotionally depleted—even when hitting your goals.
- You panic in unstructured time.
If this resonates- you are not alone.
I explore this further in Connecting Gaslighting at Work and Belonging Uncertainty, where I explain how chronic invalidation and overperformance can lead us to question both our reality and our worth.
Reclaiming Your Personal Life: Start Here
Here’s the good news: You don’t have to quit your job to reclaim your identity. But you do need to stop abandoning yourself in the name of performance. Start with these five steps:
- Reconnect with your non-performative self.
Who were you before your job? What brought you joy before success had to be earned? - Audit your boundaries.
Not everything is urgent. Not every message needs an instant reply. Reclaim your right to pause. - Separate output from worth.
Your value is not your productivity. It never was. - Practice saying no.
To protect your energy, honor your values, and challenge the myth that self-sacrifice is noble. - Seek spaces of true belonging.
Belonging doesn’t require you to shrink, hustle, or mask. It welcomes your wholeness.
We’ve been taught that the more we give to our jobs, the more we’ll be rewarded. But when belonging comes at the cost of authenticity, it isn’t belonging – it’s survival.
Belonging means being part of something without losing yourself in the process. The moment we begin sacrificing parts of ourselves for visibility, inclusion, or approval – we’ve already lost the thing we’re trying to gain.
The good news? Awareness is the first step. Let’s stop performing ourselves into invisibility. Reclaim your life as your own.
Beth Kaplan is an expert and researcher on leadership strategies, employee retention and belonging. She is considered a pioneer in leadership development and can be booked for lectures through the Premium Speakers agency: 1 (704) 804 1054 or beth.kaplan@premium-speakers.com.