Labels
| A few weeks ago, my former student Antonia reflected on Linkedin about her habit of outing herself in new groups as pet lover and nerd – even in a professional context. So she was asking herself: «Where’s your line between personal and work life? How much of yourself do you show your colleagues? Has it ever backfired? Or have you ever benefited from it?» Unconsciously, this was the starting point of today’s post, but it didn’t bubble up until after I had published my last «Butterflies» about FILTERS talking about highly sensitive people. Writing it brought back a recent episode where I was asked to fill out an application form for Maya’s kindergarden. I reached the comment section where we were supposed to mention any additional information about our child (what does that even mean? I mean they literally provide two lines for this…) and I was hesitant to put down «highly sensitive child». Many a conversation with other parents and several parenting books have told me not to mention this fact in front of teachers of any kind as she is not going to be able to develop freely labeled as HSP kid and we as parents are going to be put in some kind of mental box for overprotective caretakers. So I did not mention it. I did not label her. The whole HSP topic has pushed me to think hard about labels, but this newsletter is not going to be another one on HSP. In fact, the topic grows much deeper than that: What do we get from labeling ourselves as a certain kind of person? Are we going to be stuck with it? If so, for how long? Does the sense of belonging derived from putting ourselves in a certain box outweigh the risk of getting boxed in? I recently became part of a new social group where we were asked to introduce ourselves in really just a few words. So I paid attention to what kind of information me and others were actually revealing within these constraints. It mostly boiled down to: I have this many kids. I work as XYZ. I live in the suburbs/city/you name it. Is this the most relevant information about ourselves when we meet new people? Is this what defines who we are? It definitely is the way we are accustomed to introduce ourselves. But if you had three words to describe yourself, what would they be? I pondered over this question for a while and over the labels I tend to put on myself. A decade ago, my three words would most likely been «heart-broken restless soul» (although I would never have shared that with anyone in public and probably said something along the lines of «international project manager»…). These days, my three words would probably be: highly-sensitive introspective mompreneur. What does this tell about me? That I have an elevated sensory-processing ability and empathy level. That I spend a lot of time immersed within myself to process my thoughts and emotions. That what I do for a living is defined by my entrepreneurial drive, despite having kids. But am I still going to say this about myself when the kids are no longer toddlers? When am I going to outgrow the label «mompreneur» and is my work less valuable if I do it without a children attached to each leg? Obviously, labels do play an important role in making sense of our complex world. Each label will allow us to quickly pull out a mental model from our inner library and guide our actions and reactions in any given situation with that person. However, I strongly believe that the way we label ourselves, introduce ourselves, even silently talk to ourselves also has a profound impact on the arena that we create for us to act and develop in. Which kind of information do we reveal in which context? Did we derive our labels from how others perceive us or is it the other way around? How often do we challenge our existing labels? Can we try to get rid of them and create a blank slate? In any case, I hope you are happy with your wardrobe of labels and able to change them whenever you like. All the best, Tanja This text appeared in my thought-letter Tanja’s Butterflies (July Edition 2021 – Part 1). In case you are interested in future editions, feel free to sign up here. |
