The HBR Work Smart Collection (4 Books)

5 When Your Career Becomes Your Whole Identity

by Janna Koretz

Dan,* a partner at a Boston law firm, was due at the office, but instead, he was curled on his bathroom floor, unshaven and in his pajamas, crying into a towel.

It began slowly. In a meeting with a particularly pushy client, a thought bubbled up in his mind: “Why the hell am I even here?” From that moment, he noticed that his impatience, unhappiness, and frustration with his job grew deeper until all at once, he realized that he didn’t find happiness or fulfillment in his work—and maybe he never had.

For someone who had built his entire idea of himself around his career, this thought sent Dan into an existential crisis. Who was he, if not a high-powered lawyer? Had he wasted ...