The Identity Gap

What Nobody Tells You About Outgrowing Your Life

I had coffee with a friend last month.

“I was offered the number three position in the company,” she said. “The one I thought I wanted for the past five years. The perfect capstone before retirement.”

I waited.

“And now I don’t want it.”

She looked at me like she was confessing something shameful.

The role required relocation. More hours. More intensity. And somewhere between the offer conversations with her president and our coffee, she’d realized:

What she has right now is enough.

Work that fulfills her. Time with her adult kids. Months each year somewhere warm. The ability to design a full life, not just a full career.

“I’ve always been about the next level,” she said. “And now I’m sitting here thinking... I don’t want that anymore. And I don’t know what that means about me.”

That confusion—when the person you’ve always been stops being the person you are?

That’s the identity gap.

Why Do Successful People Struggle Most When Their Identity No Longer Fits?

Researchers at Stanford and the University of Michigan discovered that what looks like a crisis is often an identity reorganization. Your brain becomes more attuned to purpose, meaning, and alignment in your 40s, 50s, and 60s.

Translation: you’re not regressing. You’re evolving.

The problem? You spent decades building an identity that worked. The high performer. The reliable one. The person who always wanted more.

And now that identity feels like borrowed clothes.

My friend wasn’t confused because she changed her mind about a job.

She was confused because she changed her mind about who she is and what she wanted at this chapter of her life.

She built her entire professional identity around climbing. Now she wants to stop climbing and actually live + enjoy.

The gap isn’t between where you are and where you want to go.

It’s between who you were and who you’re becoming.

And high achievers hate gaps. They want plans. Certainty. A clear next step.

But identity reorganization doesn’t work that way.

The three signals you’re in the identity gap and what each one means

Most people miss the gap entirely because they’re looking for dramatic signs. But reorganization is quiet. Here’s how it actually shows up:

Signal 1: The Mismatch

You’re good at something that no longer interests you. Or you’re interested in something you don’t yet have language for.

My friend is excellent at executive leadership. She just doesn’t want to executive-lead anymore.

The skill remains. The desire has shifted.

The mismatch isn’t failure. It’s data.

Signal 2: The Stranger

You look at your calendar, your LinkedIn profile, your inbox, and think: This is someone’s life. But whose?

The commitments made sense when you made them. Now they feel like someone else’s obligations.

This isn’t burnout (burnout is exhaustion).

The stranger feeling is dissonance: meeting expectations for an identity you no longer claim.

Signal 3: The Pull

Something keeps tugging at your attention. A different way of working. A different rhythm. A different definition of success.

You can’t name it yet. But you feel it.

That pull isn’t distraction. It’s direction.

The Identity Bridge: How to cross the gap without burning everything down

Forget “finding yourself.” You’re not lost. You’re transitioning. And transitions need structure.

Here’s the framework I use with clients in the gap:

STEP 1: Name the old identity (specifically)

Not “I’m a leader.”

But: “I’m the person who says yes to every opportunity because I equate visibility with value.”

Be ruthless about specificity.

The vaguer you are, the longer you’ll stay stuck.

STEP 2: Identify what you’re protecting*

You’re not starting over. You’re carrying forward what matters.

What skills, values, and rhythms do you want to keep?What energizes you when you strip away the performance?

This isn’t about discarding 20 years of expertise.

It’s about separating what’s yours from what was borrowed.

STEP 3: Test the new identity in low-stakes environments

You don’t need to quit your job to try on a new way of being.

If you’re moving from “always-available executive” to “person with boundaries,” test it.

Say no to one meeting. See how it feels. Adjust.

If you’re exploring “creator” instead of “corporate leader,” create something small: a post, an essay, a conversation.

New identities emerge from practice, not from a single bold decision.

What does research say about identity shifts?

And why timing matters.

Harvard’s 85-year Study of Adult Development found that people who make intentional identity shifts in midlife report higher well-being, stronger relationships, and greater life satisfaction afterward.

What’s less talked about: Millennials and Gen Z are hitting this gap earlier.

Not because they’re less resilient, but because they were encouraged to build meaningful lives—then handed systems never designed for meaning.

The gap isn’t age-specific.

It’s readiness-specific.

If you’re feeling it now—at 35 or 45 or 55—you’re not early or late.

You’re paying attention.

The gap isn’t the problem.

Pretending you’re not in it is.

My friend eventually turned down the number three role. Not because she gave up. Because she chose differently.

She’s still the same skilled executive.

She’s just no longer the person who defines success as the next rung up.

That’s reorganization. Not retreat.

If you’re in the gap right now, the work isn’t to fix yourself.

It’s to stop performing an identity that no longer fits.And start building one that does.

One specific choice at a time.

What identity are you outgrowing right now? Hit reply.

— Carolyn

P.S. If you know someone navigating their own identity gap, forward this. Sometimes the most helpful thing is knowing you’re not imagining it.