What Does It Take To Make A Successful Life Transition?

Over the course of my adult life, I’ve often described myself, usually with a bit of chagrin in my voice, as “perpetually, or once again, in transition.”

Now maybe that’s because I’m obsessed with the question of “who am I?”, which for me is always fluid if not downright elusive. (With Saturn, the archetype that drives structure and form, in my 12^th house – the house of formlessness where the ego dissolves – I am destined to never be attached to any form, alas).

Or perhaps it’s because truth be told, I have a Peter Pan complex and never see myself as  being fully “grown up”…..or perhaps it’s because I recognize the impermanence of everything even while my anti-Buddhist self clings to the myth of “happily ever after”.

In any event, you could say I’m an expert in transitions.

I’ve been divorced and remarried.  I’ve changed careers numerous times including going to medical school at age 37. I’ve made several cross-country moves to start a new phase of life.  And as of 4 months ago with an international relocation, once again, I am in the process of navigating a MAJOR transition – new home, new culture, new language, new life stage, new focus for my creative and contributory energies and last but not least, adjusting to a now-retired husband (which will take another whole post to address!).

Sadly, I see (personally and professionally) too many people get stuck in fear, dissatisfaction and wishful thinking.  They find themselves in a state of mildly to severely depressed resignation, with the sinking feeling there’s nothing they can do.

Yet there are clearly defined steps that if you follow them, will take you from here to there, even though “there” may look different than what you initially thought.  [Then again, it’s not  a life transition if you know exactly who, how, what, why, and where you’ll be at the end.]

But remember that it’s always one foot in front of the other.  While your end goal may sound glamorous to those observing you [as in “OMG, you’re moving to Ecuador.  How exciting!”] most of the time your transition will feel like “chop wood, carry water.”  After all, that is the dharma of life.

Four essential ingredients:

1.   A Willingness to Step Out of Your Comfort Zone – This is by definition the essence of transition.
2.   Problem-solving skills – As much as emotion is involved at every step along the way, successful transitions that you consciously engineer (vs. those serendipitous transitions that bless us from time to time),  require a strategy and problem-solving skills.
3.   A Willingness and Readiness to Experiment – This could be a challenge if your learning style is weak on experimentation.  But the reality is that your transition will be unique to you – it’s not about keeping up with the Joneses, or following exactly in others’ footsteps though you can certainly learn from them.  It’s about exploring, discovering, and clarifying what’s right for YOU, and with any luck at all, you will make mistakes and learn from them!
4.   A Healthy Dose of Surrender and Acceptance – Typically our greatest challenge, for our egos resist change, resist the fear that we might fail, and resist uncertainty.  And yet, change and transition cannot occur without these.  End of story….or beginning of story, as you like.

If you find yourself short on any of these, remember that Reaching Out is the key to resilience and weathering the uncertainties and potential setbacks of your unknown journey.  The key of course is to actually reach out!  Find a friend or rent a friend, or do both.

Potential Traps That Await You if You Forget Any of the Essential Ingredients:

–      Making repeated false starts only to give up again and again

–      Believing all the pesky but convincing emotions of fear, anxiety, frustration and annoyance that tell you this is a bad idea

–      Living in that yucky limbo state of dissatisfaction, a kind of purgatory in which you don’t feel fulfilled and experience downward-spiraling self-esteem and  confidence.

Putting the Ingredients Together:

An iterative and not necessarily linear process that you can use as a checklist and reminder for what the next step(s) might be, knowing that you’ll need to repeat each of them over and over, even when you wonder if you possibly can.

• Research

Start researching possibilities for change and growth.  The key to getting unstuck is knowing you have options.  Exploring options will bring into focus what you do and don’t want.

• Envisioning Something New

Sometimes your vision will emerge out of the research.  Other times, you start with a vision or at least a hunch of what you want and research will help ground your vision in reality in terms of what’s required to make it happen.

• Finding the necessary resources and support

Mental, emotional, material and spiritual, internal and external.  You will need them all.  For example, while a big motivation for our expatriating to Ecuador was to live in a beautiful place and significantly lower our cost of living, the relocation itself was costly, and we had to continually track and change our budget and know what resources we would have available to manage each stage of the actual relocation.

• The Nitty-Gritty To-Do’s

This is the “chop wood, carry water” part.  This IS the Implementation part where you’re really doing the transition.  Even if you hate making lists, do it.  It will concretize your next steps and make them real.

• Falling Apart/Letting Go/Trusting the Process

Yes, this is necessary, and scary.  Stepping into transition requires an “unfreezing” of the status quo.  There may be moments when you feel like it’s all falling apart (it is and it’s supposed to), you’re losing it, and finally doggone it, you just have to let go – whether it’s letting go of fear, of anxiety, the known, or the need you have to control everything [not that I know anything about this of course]  Cliched as it is, transition is all about trusting the process.  You must die to the old before you can be reborn.

• Self-Nurturance

Too often neglected in good times, we do even worse with self-care in stressful times.  Most of us have the mindset of “we’re too busy, we don’t have enough time or money” and bottom line, “I can tough this out.”  Don’t.  Get a massage, vent with a friend, go to a movie or take yourself out to dinner, take a break. Period.

• Adjusting to Your New Identity

This is the gift of the transition.  Putting one foot in front of the other, chopping wood and carrying water, you evolve a new, expanded, sense of identity.  Doubt it, question it, marvel at it, bask in it.  You’ve earned it.

Appreciate yourself for your courage in undertaking a life transition, and if you need support, please, please, please, reach out.

What wisdom would you add from your own life transitions?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tagged as: boomers, change, expatriating, getting unstuck, Personal Growth, transition, transitions