"What is my ideal role at work?" No matter your design, Human Design can answer this question as a piece of the puzzle that helps to clarify your career path. Understanding your Identity and Direction from the Human Design for Business framework brings self-empowerment and helps you recognize how you are here to share your direction and identity at work. Acceptance of your strengths or recognizing your shadows here has the potential to generate your/your team’s identity and lead your team in a successful direction.

In the Human Design System, one of the primary ways we describe how a person is designed to operate is through what we call Centers and their Functions.

These Functions and their Shadows are two of the 16 Success Codes we analyze to determine the most direct path to success for you as a unique individual. You can find out how all your Functions operate by ordering a Full Human Design Career Analysis Success Code Report and taking a look at Success Codes 9 and 10. The Functions that define your consistent strengths are revealed in Success Code 9.

There are nine Functions in your career design, which are a key aspect of how you operate.

One of the key elements to look at when analyzing someone’s BG5 Career Design is how an individual can best utilize each of their nine Functions. At the core of your Career Design is the Identity and Direction Function. This Function gives you profound insights into how you are uniquely designed to express your role individually or in groups as a transmitter or receiver of the possible directions we are designed to travel in work and life.

Success Code 10 shows us Functions as “Shadows and Distractions.”

These shadows can be your biggest decision-making pitfalls. But with awareness, they can become your greatest source of wisdom and potential profit. In this Human Design System article, we will cover how the Identity and Direction Function can operate in a fixed way (listed under Success Code 9) and how it can function in a flexible way (listed under Success Code 10 as “Role Confusion”).

Your Human Design Identity and Direction Function:

• Can determine the role you’re here to play

• Gives you a clear sense of Self

• Guides generation and manifestation of individuals and teams

• Holds six characteristics that are essential to  small business success

The key for the Identity and Direction Function in either code 9 or 10 is to act in agreement with your Decision-Making Strategy. You can reference Success Code 3 for more information about your personal Decision-Making Strategy. Your Decision-Making Strategy is the way you are intended to make the right decision at the right time. Making choices you trust with confidence leads you to a better quality of life and improved bottom-line.

Human Design for Work Success Code 9:

Identity and Direction Function—Having a Fixed Role At Work

When "Identity and Direction" is listed under Functions on your Human Design Career Map, you have a fixed and defined personality, and you have the ability to lead, even change the direction of others. You may find it helpful to look deeper into the characteristics or strengths that originate from this function to get a better sense of what your role is in a small group.

Rejecting your personal role that comes naturally to you can result in loss of self-confidence and fulfilling your unique potential. Being able to clearly recognize when it’s time to follow your path and let others follow theirs can be a relief. Too many people are caught up in the suffering that comes from trying to be successful at what they are not designed to be fulfilled by in their career. The seduction of what your mind thinks is important can lead you down that path; if you regularly feel frustrated, bitter, angry or disappointed it’s a sign that you made a wrong turn and it’s time to get back on the path that’s right for you.

Human Design for Work Success Code 10:

The Shadow & Distraction of Role Confusion

If your Identity and Direction Function shows up instead as Role Confusion under Success Code 10, it means this function operates inconsistently for you. The good news is that your design in an organization could offer the perfect solution when:

• Someone needs to step in and evaluate the direction

• Someplace needs to be assessed for its appropriateness for an event

• Flexibility is needed when dealing with different strong personalities
   

On the flip side, your sensitivity to place can distract you, and you may tend to:
 

• Be confused about your role

• Feel uncomfortable and need to change places

• Continually change directions, causing instability

The flexibility your Identity provides you the ability to adroitly adapt to varying characters or paths in life, trying on different roles, hoping for the right fit. If this search is obsessive and determines your decision-making, it could undermine your success. Your gift is that of the consummate chameleon and can make a remarkably talented actor. You tend to be able to get along with many different kinds of people and the friends you have may not necessarily get along with each other.

For some people, not knowing what to be is a strong theme. It is essential in this case for you never to give authority over what your role is to anyone else. When you take on the wrong role, it’s like wearing a suit off the rack as compared to a custom-tailored piece that fits you perfectly.

No matter the configuration of your Identity and Direction Function, you are perfectly designed as you are. Remember you have certain areas that are actively energized and fixed while others are open to experiencing the myriad possibilities and potentials that you can learn from and grow wise about over time. Your greatest shadows have the greatest wisdom potential, and in fact, your greatest profit potentials as well.

Human Design can lead you to a successful life filled with satisfaction, doing what you love.

Are you ready to fulfill your highest purpose to improve both your bottom line and our world?

by Andrea Abay-Abay
Human Design Analyst, Teacher, and BG5 Career & Business Consultant