Survival Identity: The Hidden Patterns Running Your Work, Leadership, and Life

You didn't lose your ambition. You didn't lose your values. But somewhere along the way, you lost yourself - and you're not sure how it happened.Maybe it was the layoff that stripped away the title you'd built your identity around. The divorce that ended the version of you that existed inside that relationship. The diagnosis that rewrote your future. The leadership role that required you to become someone you no longer recognize. The career that succeeded - and somehow still left you feeling hollow.This isn't a motivation problem. It is a survival identity problem.The Survival Identity is the version of yourself you constructed to navigate pressure, uncertainty, and institutional demands. It kept you safe. It earned you success. It made you indispensable. But it was built for a world that no longer exists - and now it's running your life on autopilot, making decisions you didn't consciously choose, costing you more than you realize.In Survival Identity, Dr. Amy Chiang draws on 20 years of research and practice in human and organizational change, including work with Fortune 100 companies, to name the experience that millions of people have lived through but never had language for.This book will help you:Recognize the survival patterns quietly running your decisions, relationships, and energyUnderstand how identity-level change actually works - and why conventional approaches miss itMove through transition with clarity and intention rather than reactivityBuild the foundation for what comes next - not from who you had to become, but from who you actually areSurvival Identity is based on a framework grounded in adult learning theory, somatics, and the real stories of people who have navigated the hardest transitions of their lives. It is for anyone who has ever had to become someone new, and wondered whether the person they were becoming was really who they wanted to be.The pattern underneath your behavior has a name. Once you see it, you can change it.Dr. Amy Chiang, PhD, MS holds a doctorate in Human and Organizational Systems and dual master's degrees in Organizational Change Management and Human Development. She is the creator of the FORMA® framework and the founder of Transforma Systems, Inc. Read more