Change and personal identity (Part 2 of a series)
by Amy S. Friend BB, CQM, Senior Member Rochester Chapter STC
This is part 2 of a series: Revel in Your Discomfort: Living With Change. An earlier version of these articles was published in the Proof Sheet newsletter of the Rochester Chapter of STC, beginning in November, 1996.
In Part 1 I wrote about Tannenbaum’s Change Continuum. Robert Tannenbaum explains that every change is perceived as either superficial, incremental, continuous, or transformational. Two different people may perceive (or classify) the same change differently depending on their experience, gender, ethnic background, or other personal history. How we experience change has more to do with us than with the change. This month’s article will focus more on the personal side of change.
Take a couple of minutes to do an exercise. Think about who you were during high school. Going back and being who you were then, write down ten responses to the question: “Who are you?” You may have responses like: “I am a sister, I am a son, I am a student, I am a partier, or I am a [insert your hobby here].” Each of your responses represents a role in your life at a given point in time.
When you are done, prioritize your roles in the order of importance to you. Your “number one” should be the most important role in your life when you were in high school, not today.
Now think about this question: “What would it have been like to lose your first identity back then?”
How would it have felt to lose your second? And your tenth? Most people find that it would have been very difficult to lose their number one and easier to lose their number ten role.
Set aside these roles for now. Next, do the same exercise for who you are today. “Who are you today?” Write down your ten responses. Prioritize them when you are done. These responses represent new, different roles in your life today, a different point in time.
Look at the two lists. You probably have some quite different responses and maybe a few still the same. The ones that are on both lists may be prioritized differently. For example, in high school I prioritized my “student role” with favorite teachers pretty high. Now that role doesn’t make the top ten. Things change in our lives. Today, one of my top roles is a Training Designer. This was not on my list back in high school.
How we see ourselves, shown by the roles we choose, will affect which changes we experience as having a major impact or minor impact. If our job title is a major role, a major part of our identity, then a change in our job title may be experienced as a transformational change. For another person, if the job title isn’t even on the list, then a change in job title may be perceived as superficial. There is nothing good or bad about either one. It is just how we prioritize our roles that may determine how we experience change in one of those roles.
One way to help deal with major change is to try broadening our identities and clarifying the real importance to us. For example, a person who describes himself as an “editor” may experience a request to write software documentation as major change. Another person who thinks of herself as a “technical communicator” may feel very comfortable experiencing different areas of the field.
The more narrowly we define our identities, the more likely we are to experience change as a major event, with all the emotions involved with major change.