A life is not one stable identity waiting to be understood. Work changes us. So do failure, age, relationships, and circumstance. Any fixed account of who we are eventually becomes incomplete.
A final account of a person would require that person to stop changing.
The task is not to preserve an earlier version of yourself, but to carry enough continuity forward to remain recognizably yourself while becoming someone else. The past can inform you without governing you. It can be part of who you are without becoming who you must remain.