Over and over, I meet smart, accomplished, high-achieving professionals who feel trapped—not by their circumstances but by who they’ve decided they are:
The marketer who knows exactly where her career path leads and can’t get excited about it anymore.
The business owner who left corporate to run her own show, but can’t find time for herself.
The highly specialized contractor who can’t switch industries because he’ll have to start at the bottom.
The athlete who feels guilty resting. (Hiii, it’s me.)
What’s crazy is that we’re such an accountable bunch (a rarity in this world, if you ask me) that we raise our hard-working hands to tell the world that WE are the problem. (“I don’t know what’s wrong with me… is Mercury in Retrograde?”)
If you’re nodding along with me, I have news: you didn’t cause this.
You’re not the problem. Leave the planets out of this. The truth is, the formula was always going to get you here:
As children, we were asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” In our formative years, we got drunk on credos like “follow your passion” and “do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life.” (That’s a lie, by the way.) As adults, we are trained to kick off every conversation with “What do you do?”
The programming runs deep. And if you’re sitting there thinking that this is some new-age crisis or burnout buzzphrase born in the age of LinkedIn and hustle culture, you haven’t looked closely enough at your own last name.
Oh, you think this is a modern dilemma? Time for a history lesson.
Last names (surnames, if you fancy) are surprisingly recent. For most of human history, people were known by a singular name. It wasn’t until the 11th or 12th centuries that last names began spreading through Europe, driven largely by the introduction of taxes and land ownership—basically a way to track who owned what.
When the government started requiring people to have a second name, the most natural shorthand was what you did. John the Blacksmith became John Smith. The baker down the road became Tom Baker. And so on. Which is why these names are so extraordinarily common today:
Smith — the most common surname in English-speaking countries (metalworking was lit)
Baker
Miller
Weaver
Thatcher
Cooper (a barrel-maker)
Fletcher (an arrow-maker)
Chandler (a candle-maker)
In Germany: Müller (miller), Schneider (tailor), Fischer (fisher)
In France: Boucher (butcher), Lefebvre (blacksmith)
So if you were born in the Middle Ages, you weren’t just someone who did a job. The job became who you were, literally written into your legal identity. (Of course, if you were a woman, your identity was never really yours—it belonged to the state, the church, your husband, or your father. But that’s a whole other essay.)
My point is, having your identity hijacked by your career is not a modern trap—it was institutionalized centuries ago. And every era found a new way to tell the same lie. (If you need more examples, I have receipts.)
The antidote? Stop equating who you are to what you do.
Rather, build your identity around the things you gravitate towards when you’re not getting paid. Name the things you enjoy, the things you’re good at, and the lens through which you want other people to see you, and then own it.
Only then can you view your work as a vehicle for the life you want—rather than the thing that defines you—and feel free to reposition yourself accordingly.
xx Tana
PS — Hey Jackson locals! I’m hosting another breakfast on Friday, April 17th, and I’m excited to share a new tool I’ve been developing to help you identify exactly what’s standing in your way.