A year after my own breast cancer surgery — and through a cascade of other health challenges, including surgery for a broken elbow — I see more than ever how essential this conversation is. Not just personally, but professionally, and systemically. The way we speak about strength, identity, and agency — especially in the context of women’s health — shapes far more than we realize.

When Breast Cancer Challenges Your Identity

For high-achieving entrepreneurs and professional women, a breast cancer diagnosis creates profound challenges to the identity you’ve carefully built. Everything that has defined your professional and personal self may suddenly shift – your capacity, your presence, your leadership, and your own version of work-life balance.

The high achiever who masterfully managed multiple priorities may struggle with basic energy management. The CEO whose vision drove an entire organization might face fog-filled days where strategic thinking feels impossible. The professional whose appearance and presence were part of her personal brand confronts changes that feel like assaults on the self-image she’s cultivated – hair loss, breast changes, scarring, and weight fluctuations aren’t merely physical changes but profound challenges to how she’s known herself both professionally and personally. They not only influence her core identity and sense of herself, but also her self-acceptance and even her self-love.

Your professional roles and relationships are suddenly in flux. The leader who could always be counted on may need to delegate in new ways. The visionary accustomed to five-year planning horizons might need to focus on getting through treatment phases. The woman who built her career on being in control will likely struggle with navigating a medical system that threatens her autonomy, and a disease that defies her usual approach to challenges.

This shift extends to decision-making about treatment options as well. High achievers often approach medical decisions with the same thoroughness they bring to business decisions—researching every option, seeking innovative approaches, and potentially integrating complementary modalities that align with their values and vision for recovery.

This identity disruption is both professional and personal—it touches every aspect of how you’ve defined yourself and navigated the world. Projects, positions, personal activities, and relationships foundational to your sense of self are suddenly called into question or require significant recalibration. You may need to step back from leadership roles, decline speaking engagements, renegotiate client relationships, or let go of relationships that have revealed themselves to be unsupportive of your healing journey. Financial concerns add another layer as the independence you’ve worked so hard to achieve may feel threatened.

Whether you continue working during treatment on a full or modified schedule, or take time away completely, the professional landscape shifts. Many high-achieving women find that navigating their professional presence during and after treatment presents its own identity challenge—colleagues may treat you differently, client dynamics may shift, and your own relationship to your work may fundamentally change.

Yet within this profound challenge lies an equally powerful opportunity. When familiar identity structures are disrupted, new possibilities emerge. The space created allows for a more conscious exploration of who you truly are beyond the achievements you’ve accumulated and the roles you’ve mastered.

Understanding how your high-achiever identity influences your approach to cancer creates a foundation for transformative healing. Rather than fighting to maintain previous patterns or abandoning your professional identity entirely, you can develop a more fluid relationship with who you are—incorporating both strength and vulnerability, achievement and acceptance, control and surrender.

Your Power Drivers play a crucial role in this identity transformation journey – especially how you process and regulate your response to uncertainty, how you connect with yourself and others during vulnerability, and how you work with resistance rather than against it. As these drivers shift from unconscious patterns to conscious choices, you discover new dimensions of power that transform not just your cancer experience but your entire approach to life and leadership.

The Ascending Warrior approach recognizes that true power comes not from rigidly maintaining your professional identity in the face of cancer, but from allowing this experience to reveal new dimensions of your leadership, vision, and purpose, and enrich your relationships, your health, and every aspect of your life.
Many women find their leadership style evolves through this journey—integrating more authenticity, compassion, and wisdom into how they lead and make decisions. What once seemed important may shift, creating space for a more aligned expression of their talents and vision.

What aspects of your professional and personal identity feel most challenged by your cancer journey? What new facets of yourself might be waiting to emerge?

I’d love to hear what this stirs in you.