You’re More Than Your Job

What are you putting off for ‘one day’? 

Because most of the leaders I work with have a version of it. One day, when things calm down, I’ll get back to running. One day, when this funding bid is in, I’ll start cooking properly again. One day, when I’m less busy, I’ll see my friends more. 

And some of the leaders I’ve worked with have said something that’s stayed with me. They’ve told me, quite directly, that they only see themselves having three, maybe five more years in the sector. And that’s when their life will really begin. Not now. Later. When all of this is done. Because you can’t lead a charity and have a life. 

What if one day arrives and you’ve forgotten what you were waiting for? 

What if one day never comes?  

What it looks like when work becomes your whole identity

You started this work with passion, with excitement and energy. And you were committed. But it’s that commitment, which shifts passion and purpose, into identity. 

Gradually, over time, that commitment has shifted the job you do, into who you are. When someone asks what you do for fun, you hesitate, when you try to picture what you’d do if you weren’t in this role, it’s hard to imagine.  The job has expanded to fill everything, your time, your headspace, your sense of self.  

You feel guilty doing things for yourself. Taking an evening off feels indulgent. Going on holiday without checking emails feels selfish. Saying no to something that isn’t urgent feels impossible. There’s always a quiet voice that says, someone needs this, the work matters, this can’t wait. Because the buck stops with you, and you need to get the job done. 

And this is borne out in the research, charity leaders are working an average of 10 extra unpaid hours every week. That’s 10 hours taken from somewhere else, from rest, from relationships, from the parts of life that remind you who you are beyond the role. 

And underneath all of it, there’s a worry that doesn’t get named very often. What happens when the work ends? Retirement. Redundancy. A period of ill health. Who are you then? Who would you be if you didn’t work in the charity sector? If the work is your identity, losing it isn’t just losing a job. It’s losing yourself. 

Why does this happen?

Work as a calling creates a particular kind of vulnerability.

When the work is meaningful, when it connects to your values, your sense of purpose, your desire to make a difference, it doesn’t feel like work in the way a nine-to-five might. It feels like something more than just a job, and that’s a genuinely good thing for our wellbeing. But it also means the boundaries between work and self become blurry, you don’t just leave a job at the door, you carry it with you. Because it’s not just a job, it’s part of who you are, and this places you at risk of work becoming your everything if you’re not vigilant to it. 

The sector reinforces it.

The norms of the charity sector celebrate dedication, responsiveness, and sacrifice. The charitable aims, the needs of the communities you serve, the needs of your teams, the shared sense of purpose among colleagues, all of it creates a pull towards giving more. And when you’re surrounded by people who feel the same way, it’s very hard to step back and say, actually, I need to protect something for myself. 

The guilt makes it almost impossible to change.

This is what doesn’t get talked about enough. You know that you (and probably the rest of your team) need better boundaries, that you need a life outside work, that you need to prioritise your needs, development and wellbeing, but the moment you try to focus on these, the guilt arrives, along with anxiety.  

You find yourself pulled back in, because the discomfort of stepping back feels worse than the exhaustion of staying. Because it’s more than just setting boundaries, and focusing on yourself, it’s about shifting how you view your work and yourself. 

What you can actually do about it

The aim here isn’t about caring less about the work, that passion is important. It’s about expanding who you are beyond it, so that the work becomes part of your life, rather than all of it. You want to get to a point where you’re not questioning whether it’s work or you, but work and you. But this means thinking about this before you’re at a point of exhaustion or crisis. 

1. Remember making a difference means taking care of you

When you’re so used to putting work, and everyone else before you, it becomes automatic. But remember that to lead well (to be able to be strategic, to problem solve, to be effective) you need to look after your energy and resilience, knowing this and regularly reminding yourself of this, can enable you to reframe the thought that ‘time for you is selfish’ to ‘time for me, makes me a better leader’. 

2. Hold the work more lightly.

This starts with noticing  

• when you’re thinking about work outside working hours.  

• the guilt when you stop.  

• what you’re telling yourself about what a good leader looks like. 

• when you immediately step in to help. 

The aim isn’t to eliminate those thoughts or feelings, it’s to get some distance from them, which enables you to evaluate whether you really need to do more right now, whether something is urgent, whether it can be delegated. This means you start to respond and stop reacting, getting you out of firefighting, and feeling more in control. 

But beyond this, when you hold on too tightly to something, there’s no space for it to breathe, to grow, it’s crushed. If you hold it lightly it can take up the space it needs to, but there is room for more. 

3. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable emotions.

When you start to create boundaries, when you close the laptop on time, say no to something, take a proper lunch break, guilt and anxiety will show up.  

This is normal, and it doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong. But in our society we’re used to trying to get rid of those thoughts and emotions which we find uncomfortable, we push them down, but by doing so, we make them worse. Imagine a child who is trying to get your attention, if you ignore them, they only get louder, try harder.  

So instead of trying to make those feelings go away, we want to accept them, to sit with them, and to choose to do the thing you want to do anyway. Over time, the discomfort reduces, but you have to go through it, not around it. 

4. Find where you find meaning and purpose outside of work.

It could be your relationships, opportunities for creativity, learning, achievement, your community, your spirituality. Whatever it is that reminds you that you are a person, not just a leader. 

And if you’re not sure where else you find meaning and purpose, that’s important information, it might be that the work has been filling that space for so long that you’ve genuinely lost touch with what else does.  

If that’s the case, ask yourself which activities, people, hobbies, communities have brought you meaning, pleasure or have used your strengths, and use this as a starting point to explore where you might want to focus time outside of work now. 

5. Start building ‘one day’ now.

Not when things calm down, not when the sector changes, not in five years. Now. 

Identify one thing you’ve been putting off, one friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with, one hobby you want to restart. It doesn’t have to be big, but it has to be real and important to you. Because one day has a habit of staying exactly where it is, in the future, unless you make a deliberate choice to start living it today. Think about it, how many times have you promised yourself you’d do the thing, and you still haven’t? 

The bigger picture

You are not your job title. You are not your charity. You are not the cause, however much you care about it. 

You are a person first. And the most sustainable, effective version of leadership comes from a life that is full, not from a life that has been sacrificed to the difference you want to make. 

The leaders I work with who find their way back to themselves, who start building a life that exists alongside the work, don’t do it by caring less, or being less dedicated. They do it by accepting that it doesn’t have to be either or, that thinking about themselves isn’t selfish.  

Not one day.  

Now.