Making sense of my experiences to date
A Professional identity: another layer of paint
Have you noticed how easy it is for certain personality types to take on a new identity?
Gary Lineker, the broadcaster, was one of the best centre forwards to play football for England, he also commentates on golf and would probably describe himself as ‘an ex–professional footballer’ currently working in the media’. One day he will probably drop the footballer bit and describe himself as a ‘professional broadcaster’, as his footballing days were such a long time ago and the relevance lost.
The above describes that process of making small changes that result in another professional identity. Keen followers of football will remember Mr Lineker’s stuttering experiments as a guest of ‘Match of the Day’ long before he joined as its link man. However, his transition was a fairly typical path trodden by those who are cross-skilling or upskilling and resulted in a change of professional identity. This is the start point of some brilliant research by Herminia Ibarra1 who is one of those people who really understands the process and can write about it in a way that is accessible to others -see reference
The size of the change that you want to make largely determines the degree of difficulty, with re-skilling being a more difficult preposition.
Find out more about the process of becoming an ‘ex’, taking on a new professional identity and how to go about it.
1. Pg 162 working identity unconventional strategies for reinventing your career. Herminia Ibarra. Harvard business school press 2004.