You Know How to Do Your Job. But Do You Know Yourself at Work?
Knowing how to do your job isn’t the same as knowing yourself at work. After 20 years in corporate roles, Bridie discovered that understanding how she works best—how she builds relationships, where her energy goes and what her time is worth—could help her make more deliberate choices about her future work. Her experience shows why career self-awareness can be just as important as career experience when you’re trying to create work that fits you.
Bridie had spent two decades working in corporate roles. She knew how to operate in big teams, build relationships and get things done.
But when she worked with Lucia, she began looking at her career differently—and started noticing things about herself that had been hiding in plain sight.
How Can You Work for 20 Years and Still Not Understand How You Work Best?
One of Bridie’s first discoveries was that she’s an introvert.
That came as a surprise.
She could happily go to large meetings and corporate events and integrate well. As she describes herself, she’s an “introvert with jazz hands.”
But through the career sculpture she completed while working with Lucia, Bridie began looking back at the decisions and patterns that had shaped her career.
Not just what did I do? but why did I make those choices? What worked for me? What didn’t? And what does that tell me about myself now?
As Bridie explains:
“I’d never really looked at me and thought about… why was I thinking that then, which led to this now?”
Twenty years of experience had given Bridie plenty of information about herself. What she hadn’t done was stop and make sense of it.
What If You’re Better at Something Than You Think?
That new understanding also challenged something else Bridie believed about herself: she wasn’t a networker.
Except she was.
Throughout her career, Bridie had built relationships one person at a time. She would sit down with someone, have a conversation and continue building that relationship over weeks or months.
She hadn’t recognized that as networking because it didn’t look like the version of networking she had in her head.
Once she understood herself better, she could see the strength that had been there all along.
She wasn’t bad at networking. She was good at doing it her way—one-to-one and deep.
That’s an important part of understanding yourself at work. Sometimes you don’t need to become better at something. You need to stop measuring yourself against a definition that was never a particularly good fit for you.
If traditional networking has never felt like you, Forget “networking” in midlife, do this instead.https://www.midlifeunstuck.com/podcast-episodes/rebuilding-human-networks-midlife explores another way to think about the relationships that shape your working life.
What Changes When You Realize Your Time Is Valuable?
Bridie’s biggest realization brings everything together:
“My time is valuable.”
During their work together, Lucia pointed out how much Bridie was giving away for free.
That made her think differently about where her time and energy were going—and what she wanted from her future work.
Because after years in corporate environments, Bridie had noticed how easy it was for work to become about productivity, targets and whether you were doing a good job.
As she puts it:
“Somewhere in that you lose you and your time is the first thing to go and it’s hard to get it back.”
Understanding herself better gave Bridie a way to change that.
She wants her time to count. She wants to spend it with people she likes and people who want similar things. She wants to bring her authentic self to her work.
And when Lucia asks what Joy at Work looks like for her now, Bridie’s first answer is wonderfully simple:
“I’m laughing.”
She pictures solving problems with people she trusts, working as a team and being somewhere she can be herself.
What Might You Discover About Yourself at Work?
Bridie’s answers aren’t a formula for everyone else.
The transformation wasn’t discovering that she was an introvert or deciding that everyone should network one-to-one.
It was understanding herself well enough to make more deliberate choices about what comes next.
Bridie and Lucia worked together through The Fierce Emporium, Lucia’s six-week work-life redesign programme. The process gave Bridie the opportunity to look back at the experience she already had, connect the dots and understand what those experiences could teach her about her future.
Your discoveries may be completely different.
But if you’ve spent years getting better and better at doing your job without stopping to ask whether the way you’re working actually fits you, that may be a useful place to start.
Because the goal isn’t simply to know how to do your job.
It’s to know yourself well enough to design work that works for you.
If you’re ready to understand what your own working life has been telling you and use it to make more deliberate decisions about what comes next:
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00:00 — How You Can Lose Yourself at Work
Bridie: It feels like you should have that understanding of yourself after 20 years in X, Y, and Z industries. But you get to a point where it's less about you and more about the productivity and feeling that you're doing a good job if you meet your numbers or whatever else it might be.
But somewhere in that, you lose you. And your time is the first thing to go, and it's hard to get it back.
Lucia Knight: Hi, I'm Lucia Knight, and this is the Joy At Work podcast.
Today I'm joined by one of my former clients, someone who, like so many of us, had a moment of, “Wait! Is this what work is supposed to feel like?” And instead of brushing it off and cracking on, they paused and chose to design their work life differently.
I've asked each guest to share the three most important insights they learned about their future work life that they never, ever want to forget.
And these aren't just light reflections. They're the result of three, six, or 12 months of deep work together, and now they're in a position to capture those timeless notes to their future selves.
Let's dive in.
I'm wondering, what's the very first thing you've learned about your future work life that you never, ever want to forget?
01:29 — What I Didn’t Know About Myself After 20 Years
Bridie: The fact that I'm an introvert. That was the first thing that really stood out to me when I started the course.
The context is that the pandemic hit, and I'd been in various corporate roles for about 20 years, and it was the most perfect opportunity to press reset.
In the process of doing that and going through the course, Lucia, you worked out that I was an introvert, and it came as a bit of a shock.
Throughout my career, I'd attended various sorts of insights courses to get an understanding of how I worked. I've been in big teams, so an understanding of what I brought to a team as opposed to others. And the whole introvert side of me just had never really occurred to me until you start to look back at your career.
A really important tool for me through the course was the career sculpture.
Through that, you start to look at your decision-making, your path. You kind of understand, from the decisions you made at the time and where you were in life, why you did certain things.
But I'd never really looked at me and thought about, why was I thinking that then, which led to this now?
So I would say I'm an introvert with jazz hands because I can go to large meetings or corporate days or whatever it might be and integrate very well.
And that kind of supports the second point, which was: if I am an introvert, how come I never thought I was a networker?
Then through the course, I realized that actually I'm a natural networker. However, I have to do it one person at a time.
I didn't think that made me a networker. I thought that made me a different person.
So being able to understand that actually I was networking all the time, doing it one person at a time, and also the nature of how I would network.
I've worked for these big companies, and if I needed to get something done, I'd understand that it was a relationship that I'd need to build over time. I would take that person to the canteen and we would sit and have a conversation, and that's how I would network.
Then the next time we would sit and have a conversation, you'd realize that technically we were doing this every two or three weeks and building that relationship.
Lucia Knight: And introverts can be magnificent networkers, as you are.
It's just, we have to do it in a way that feels real to us, which is ideally one-to-one and deep.
Bridie: Yes.
Lucia Knight: We're not very good at any of that... what's it called? Soft talking? What is that soft talking called?
Bridie: Small talk.
Lucia Knight: Small talk.
Bridie: The small talk side of it.
And I thought after I became a mom that I'd lost my ability to do small talk.
I remember our daughter was just a couple of months old or something, and going to put the bins out. We had new neighbors where we lived at the time, and it didn't even come to my brain to say hello. I just didn't even know how to start the conversation.
I remember that being a moment that I came away from and thought, wow, what is this baby brain thing? Is this gonna last forever? How does it work?
But I just remember that being a really poignant moment of not taking it for granted—that, in that very human moment, just being able to say hello. It doesn't matter what comes next.
Lucia Knight: Brilliant. Okay. And what's the final thing that you've discovered about you or your career or your future work life that you also never want to forget?
05:22 — Realizing My Time Is Valuable
Bridie: So if you put those two things together, the fact that I'm an introvert, but I'm also a natural networker, the thing that I didn't appreciate until I took the course was that my time is valuable.
And if you don't appreciate that your time is valuable... I remember you describing it as, “You are giving all of this away for free.”
Really, how does that impact your personal life?
How do you come home of an evening and feel like you've had a good day, you felt productive, you achieved something, you made some really good connections?
So for me, that was really important—to understand that I have to make it count.
Being able to put those three things together, having a better understanding of the way that I conduct myself... it seems like you should know.
It feels like you should have that understanding of yourself after 20 years in X, Y, and Z industries. But you get to a point, certainly if you've been in a corporate environment for a long time, where it's less about you and more about the productivity and feeling that you're doing a good job if you meet your numbers or whatever else it might be.
But somewhere in that, you lose you. And your time is the first thing to go, and it's hard to get it back.
So that's the one thing for my future careers: I value my time.
And it's important to spend it with people, whether it's personally or corporately, who think the same as you and want the same things as you, and that you get on with—that you actually like.
Because that's the best way to get the job done.
I think just bring your authentic self. Be an introvert and all the great things that come with that.
Lucia Knight: Lovely, lovely.
07:24 — What Joy at Work Looks Like Now
Lucia Knight: I'm curious: what does Joy at Work look like and feel like, or sound like?
If I was watching Bridie at work and Bridie's feeling joyful, what would I notice about her?
Bridie: I'm laughing.
My role is all about people, and it's highly stressful. So it's taking that stress and managing it in a way that you don't pass it on to others, but you do need to tell them the information that you need to tell them.
But it's about doing it in a way that you solve a problem together.
Problem-solving and teamwork have always been important to me.
So for me, you'll find me laughing. You'll find me taking problems to a table where I can discuss them and solve them.
I think it's important to be able to work somewhere you can be yourself.
Lucia Knight: Bridie and I worked together on the six-week work-life redesign programme called The Fierce Emporium.
Check out the episode notes to get details of the three programmes I offer so you can choose the right one to fit with your appetite for change, your desire for speed of change, and, of course, your budget, so you can find the Joy at Work that you deserve.
