Three years ago, I left my last salaried job at a large Swiss philanthropic foundation to move to Greece with my husband and kids. We were starting a small hotel on an island. I didn't know if I'd continue working in social impact after 15 years in the sector. I didn't know what my career would look like. And I didn't want to decide yet.
What I did know: I needed to rest. I needed my kids to settle into their new country. I needed mental space.
So for five months, I did almost nothing professionally. I selected plants for our balcony and tended them. I went to the beach in every type of weather. I cooked with time and joy instead of rushing. I learned handstands. I read whatever genuinely interested me.
It sounds idyllic when I write it like that. And parts of it were.
The part I rarely mention: somewhere in those months, I started feeling worthless.
The Credentials That Defined Me
For years, I had moved between UN organizations, bilateral funders, and NGOs. I fought hard to get there. It took a long time to land a well-paid, secure position in the social sector that was also intellectually interesting. Each position came with a clear title, a recognizable organization name, and a business card.
That business card was my currency. My proof that I'd made it.
Success meant having a secure, well-paid position. Being independent as a woman and mother meant not depending on my husband or anyone else in any way. I got that belief from my parents. My mother was part of the late Swiss feminist movement, a proud working mother who wanted to show that women could work and be good mothers. Success, in our home, was tied to having a stable job.
When I went through multiple internships early in my career, I had to explain my parents the uncommon territory. For them a sign I wasn't doing well yet. Giving up my secure job position and becoming an entrepreneur (which we don't have in our family) was completely new territory. It shook my (and my parents') basic beliefs about what success looks like.
My last position was at a powerful philanthropic foundation. I hadn't realized how much that organizational name opened doors until I no longer had it. People responded differently. The invitations changed. I could easily contact people in my network before. Consultancies came more readily because people assumed I had deep pockets for fundraising.
Losing it showed me how much the world had been responding to the title and institutional power, not necessarily to me.
When the Ground Shifts
The worthlessness crept in slowly.
In the hotel, my Greek was good enough for small talk and everyday life. The deep, culturally nuanced conversations with accountants, construction workers or local delivery partners? Those were beyond me. My husband, in his home country speaking his native language, naturally took those roles. I found myself doing backoffice work: accounting, social media, breakfast service.
Coming from senior strategic roles, this was not always easy. I had been the policy person, the facilitator, the one people came to for complex multi-stakeholder processes. Now I was sorting invoices and serving breakfast.
My husband and I had to negotiate new roles. The process had its difficult moments. We were figuring out partnership in a completely different context. I tried to continue my old work rhythm at first, sitting in front of my computer every free hour. It took time to create a new rhythm that included morning sports, cooking actual meals, meeting friends. Time to remember I was a person, not just a professional.
When I started applying for consulting and part-time jobs, the rejections came. I was either overqualified and too expensive, or there was no remote or part-time possibility. Each rejection made me question whether I could still work in my social impact world, or if it would be exclusively hotel work from now on. Which would be okay, but I'd miss the strategic, collaborative work I loved.
I questioned constantly during this period. I journaled. To go through the uncertainty.
The Fractional Identity Problem
Eventually, I started taking on consulting work. I created several fractional roles with interesting titles I could design myself. That's when something unexpected happened: I realized these were just roles I was jumping into. They didn't define me.
It did, however, create new tensions. On LinkedIn, I had a broad consulting title, but I wanted to share updates from my different roles. Which hat was I wearing when I posted? Sometimes clients were expecting posts for their promotion, which is hard when you have several clients. It wasn't always clear who I was representing.
That's when I decided to create my own voice on LinkedIn. To offer clients my personal channel without putting them in my title. To just be Nora, not "Nora, [Title] at [Organization]."
It was terrifying. Who was Nora without the organizational affiliation?
What I Found Beneath the Title
The breakthrough came through a combination of things:
Journaling helped me process what was happening. Freelance projects where people were genuinely interested in my strategy, policy, and collaborative facilitation skills rather than my "money connections" showed me my actual value. Creating PurposePhil Career gave me a sense of new purpose. I could help with the simple act of making jobs and talent visible to the career transition community. And I could do it on my terms: remote, flexible for seasonal peaks, without needing a classic organizational title.
Slowly, I discovered that my identity wasn't tied to any single title or organization. My value comes from my skills: listening deeply, attention to policy and detail and social dynamics. My personality: love for cultures, languages, different perspectives. My commitment to supporting this sector and the people within it.
Today, my portfolio career spans hotel management, strategic consulting, a talent platform, and mentoring mid-to-senior level professionals through their own transitions. I support a large foundation in co-creating a learning agenda on social and emotional learning with over 20 organizations worldwide. I advise a Swiss public innovation fund on funding criteria. None of it looks like the linear career path I thought I needed.
Getting here required however grief. I had to mourn the identity I'd built around salaried positions in recognized organizations. I had to question beliefs I'd carried my whole adult life about what success and independence actually mean. I had to actively create a new identity rather than inheriting one from an employer.
The Messy Middle Is Where It Happens
My family has accepted this path now. They see how we've renovated the hotel, how we're doing as humans and financially. They see I have time with my children and for myself. There's still the risky entrepreneurship part they don't fully understand, but overall, they're positive. They can see I'm more joyful, living instead of just running in the hamster wheel.
But it took time for them to get there. Just like it took time for me.
Martha Beck, Inc. talks about the difference between our "social self" (who we've become to fit the world's expectations) and our "essential self" (who we actually are beneath the roles and titles). In our sector, where work feels like calling, the gap between these two selves can become almost invisible. We are what we do.
Until we're not. Until the organization restructures, the funding ends, or we choose to leave.
That's when the question becomes unavoidable: Who am I without this?
What I'd Tell You Now
If you're in a prestigious position questioning whether to leave: the identity crisis is real, and it's coming whether you're ready or not. But it's also necessary. You can't discover who you are beneath the title until you take the title off.
If you're already in transition feeling lost: you're not doing it wrong. The worthlessness, the confusion, the questioning - that's the process. It's not a sign you made a mistake. It's a sign you're doing the deep work of separating your identity from your role.
If you've been through this and wonder if the struggle was normal: it was. The messy middle is where the real transformation happens. Not in the decision to leave, and not in the eventual "I figured it out" phase. In the uncomfortable space between, where you don't yet know who you're becoming.
Here's what helped me:
Take time. Real time to digest, grieve, and transition. To be open to unforeseen things. Don't rush into the next role to have an answer when people ask what you do.
Discover new experiences. Try activities you've always wanted to. This helps you understand yourself better outside of your professional identity.
Talk with people. Real conversations about the transition, the struggles, the relief, the journey. Go beyond networking for your next job.
Journal. Get the questions out of your head and onto paper. The clarity comes through writing, not through thinking in circles.
Connect with peers. Find others in this period. There's something powerful about knowing you're not the only one questioning everything.
Experiment. Try small things. Take on projects that interest you, even if they don't fit your old identity. Let yourself learn what actually energizes you versus what you thought should energize you.
The foundation of my current portfolio career was rest and letting things emerge. Being open-minded and curious. Building and broadening my network beyond transactional connections. Trying things to see what resonated.
But first, I had to let myself feel worthless. I had to sit in the discomfort of not knowing who I was without the business card. I had to grieve the identity I'd worked so hard to build.
That grief period was necessary. I couldn't skip to the new identity without acknowledging what I was leaving behind.
If you're in it right now, know this: the identity crisis is normal. It's the natural, necessary process of becoming someone new. Someone who exists independent of any title, any organization, any external validation.
That person was there all along. You just had to clear away everything else to find them.