IT’s not normal to overidentify with your business
How many of you overidentify with your business? I've been observing and dissecting this topic for a while now.
Every failure in your business will feel like you failed on a personal level.
This phenomenon of overidentification is actually not limited to the business world. You see it in other areas of life too.
Top athletes who struggle with identity crises post-retirement. Moms who always want to be "the good mom" and experience immense stress when faced with parenting challenges.
Have we normalized this in our society? At first, I didn't really see the harm. But the more I educated myself and reflected on this, I reached a point where I felt like NO. Here's why I think we should stop.
How do you know you have a problem
"Once upon a time, I genuinely believed that my worth was measured by how hard I worked. I was that person—always on, always available, even at a festival with friends. My boss would call, and I’d drop everything because I thought that’s what it took to succeed.
OMG right? And yet…..this is what many of us experience.
It’s crucial to understand that your business is just one part of who you are, not the entirety of your identity.
Overidentification blurs this line, making every business setback feel like a personal attack. But it doesn’t have to be this way. By recognizing and addressing the issue of overidentification, you can gain a healthier perspective that allows for growth, strategic decision-making, and emotional resilience.
Let’s explore the signs of overidentification with your business:
You feel attacked when your business is criticized.
You neglect personal relationships and family for business priorities.
Your self-worth is tied to business success or failure.
You struggle to disconnect from work during personal time.
You’re constantly thinking about your business.
You take business failures personally.
You feel intense emotions during business setbacks.
The consequences of your issue
Here’s why this is problematic:
Emotional Roller Coaster: When you overidentify with your business, every piece of feedback, every slow sales month, every bad review feels like a personal attack. This mindset prevents you from seeing valuable feedback and making strategic decisions. Instead, you remain stuck, unable to grow or gain new insights. (see “CONTROVERSIAL OPINION: A SLOW SALES MONTH IS NOT A REASON TO FEEL LIKE SH*T”)
Unhealthy Winner-Loser Mentality: If you tie your self-worth to your business's success, every failure feels like a personal defeat. For instance, if a product launch flops, you might see yourself as a total loser. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. Your business is a space for experimentation, learning, and growth. It doesn’t define your worth.
Inability to Recharge: Overidentification keeps you trapped in emotional turmoil, making it impossible to truly disconnect and recharge. This constant emotional stress eventually takes a toll on your health and overall well-being.
Feeling like your Personal Brand is You: Not being able to feel the difference between your personal brand and you as a person is emotionally draining, takes up valuable time with loved ones and confusing. (see “The Rise of Personal Brands come at a price below)
CONTROVERSIAL OPINION: A SLOW SALES MONTH IS NOT A REASON TO FEEL LIKE SH*T
In the intense world of entrepreneurship, a slow sales month can feel like the end of the world. Many business owners experience an emotional roller coaster when their numbers dip. Linking it personal inadequacy: they feel intense emotions and might even lie awake at night with worries.
However, here is an unpopular view: a slow month in sales does not warrant feelings of failure.
In fact, it's a natural part of the business cycle.
One of my clients, a seasoned entrepreneur, learned this the hard way. Let’s call her Vivian. When she had her first slow month? She panicked. Plagued by self-doubt she made frantic calls and reached out to every contact in her network. Her reputation tanked and a lot of her contact no longer took her serious.
When we did Shadow Work together, we quickly noticed a crucial pattern. Instead of panicking, she needed to review her marketing and look at the facts presented to her. Her initial response was driven by emotional turmoil rather than strategic action.
She needed to refine and innovate, not loose all her energy on emotional meltdowns.
The Reality Check
Here’s why a slow sales month is not a reflection of your worth:
Business Cycles Are Natural: Every business experiences fluctuations. These cycles are part of the broader market dynamics and not a direct reflection of your capabilities or worth. Instead focus on data and facts. Do market research where you need to.
Emotional Detachment Is Key: Overidentifying with your business outcomes leads to heightened emotional reactions. By detaching your self-worth from sales figures, you can approach problems more objectively.
Focus on Strategic Adjustments: Instead of reacting emotionally, use slow periods as an opportunity to review and innovate. Analyze your strategies, gather feedback, and implement changes based on facts rather than feelings.
The Rise of Personal Brands come at a price
We’ve all heard these kind of stories: An influencing entrepreneur, let’s call her Sarah, had carefully cultivated her personal brand as a dynamic, always-on-the-go professional. She religiously posted motivational quotes and snapshots of her seemingly perfect life on social media. However, behind the scenes, Sarah found herself constantly exhausted, struggling to maintain the image she had created.
Or another entrepreneur who we’ll call Marion goes to the beach with her family. All she’s doing is making insta-worthy snapshots losing sight of the quality family time she’s missing out on.
It’s awesome that many women get to build a business based on their personal interests. But it comes at a price if you overidentify with your brand.
Sarah and Marion aren't alone in their struggles. As the personal branding trend exploded, more and more entrepreneurs found themselves trapped in a cycle of performative success.
ENTER: Shadow work which I’ve been doing for years. Through my shadow work, I've witnessed countless entrepreneurs like Sarah and Marion confront the darker aspects of their personal branding journey.
I’ve helped so many entrepreneurs align their online presence with their true selves, rather than an idealized version. I found that precision is very important in this process.
There’s no one-size fits-all approach. You need to uncover EXACTLY where and when you overidentify and attach your entire identity to your job.
SARAH HAD TO LEARN THAT she’s not always “perfect”
Sarah had to come to terms with the fact that she couldn't always be "perfect." She constantly felt pressure to present herself as a confident and successful leader, even when she was struggling. Her need for perfection consumed her identity. A clear case of overidentification.
- I’m very aware that man coaches immediately focus on healing past traumas. That’s NOT how I work. I’ve found that you don’t really need to find out WHY you’re perfectionist with a high ethic. You need to overcome it.-
When we overidentify with one label, we lose our ability to choose how to act in a situation. The other side of our personality resides in the shadow, which means we don’t have access to it. For perfectionists like Sarah, the shadow often contains traits like vulnerability, self-compassion, and the ability to accept imperfection.
These traits are crucial, yet they remain hidden because the perfectionist identity has taken over.
MISS PERFECT is totally running the show.
Perfectionists need to reintegrate the parts of themselves that they've pushed into the shadows. As I guided people like Sarah through the Shadow Work process, I saw things change fairly quickly.
This isn’t about abandoning the drive for excellence: it is about recognizing that excellence can coexist with imperfection. Duality.
And that’s what I wish for anyone who finds themselves trapped in the cycle of perfectionism.
Put an end to the emotional rollercoaster
If you recognize these signs in yourself, it's time to take action. The first step is acknowledging the problem. In my Shadow Work Membership, called Scale without Shade, I have a 4 week program to solve Overidentification.
We start by providing you with audios, which I call *mini-trainings*, that dive into how overidentification shows up and why it occurs. These mini-trainings are designed to help you become incredibly self-aware, enabling you to identify the roles, successes, and failures that you may be tying too closely to your identity. Behind these attachments, there's often something lurking in the shadows—something you're not seeing. These trainings will help you uncover these hidden aspects, allowing you to face them directly.
Next, we’ll challenge your distorted view of reality. You’ll begin to see exactly where your inflated ego is getting in the way of your growth and the emergence of a more authentic you. We use the same principle of mini-training through short but to the point audios. Through this process, you'll learn to separate your true self from the roles and outcomes you’ve been overidentifying with.
Now we’re ready to apply healthier principles that are essential for becoming a Conqueror of Overidentification. These principles will guide you towards a more balanced and grounded sense of self obviously. You’ll be asked to reflect on these principles and apply them to your life.
-The more you invest in this process, the more you’ll start to see daily or weekly wins—small but significant shifts in how you perceive yourself and your experiences. If you just listen to one audio now and again, don’t expect much to change. This relies on your dedication as well as the content provided in the course! -
We’ll use a comment and wins section, to share results with others in the group. This will help you learn from insights of other people. By consistently applying these insights and principles, you’ll begin to break free from the traps of overidentification.
You’ll develop a stronger, more flexible sense of self that’s not dependent on external roles or outcomes in 4 weeks.
Are you a right fit?
This program will only work if you’re open to challenge your ego and become a self-aware human being. If you’re ready to confront the uncomfortable truths about how you’ve been tying your self-worth to your business or other external roles, then this program is for you.
You must be committed to listen to the training and do the self-reflections. If you’re the type that absorbs knowledge, but doesn’t actually apply it… this won't get you any results.
You’re also not a great fit if you want to rely on magic thinking. Although I’m a a big fan of raising your consciousness (OBVIOUSLY), relying on “I wish this goes away” will not help.
However, if you’re committed, I can get you serious results in 4 weeks.
WANT TO join the next round?
The next round will be hosted in the Shadow Work Membership, which you can join for a minimum of 3 months. You’ll not only get access to these trainings but also get other trainings.
Right now, the investment is 99 E monthly or 249 E per 3 months.