“So this really is my problem. I can figure out what I want to do with it.” shared a tall understated woman who had joined our Focus Group. “It’s freeing. I feel like I can be anything I want to be.” Everyone in the room nodded in support. “It’s also confusing. It’s like being a teenager again. You know, when they ask you, ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ Well, who knows!” Everyone chuckled. She was lighthearted. And yet mildly sad by the hypocrisy of it all. Hadn’t she dreamt of this moment for years as she supported everyone else? Now a pivot. To what? Continue reading…
V is for….
Voice. Do you exercise yours? On the surface it seems like a silly question. But I’m not talking about vocal capabilities. I’m wondering about voice as our expression of ourselves, our opinions. Powerful. Impactful. Or muted. Underutilized? How would you characterize your voice? Continue reading…
Getting to done….
‘I’m done.’ It’s one of the most common remarks that I hear in interviewing people about their transitions. It seems to be a psychological plateau that women reach when they cannot give any more to their current pursuit. The scholar PhD student who realizes that academia isn’t the place of her dreams. The woman who spent years in the home with four children. The single woman who gets fatigued after years supporting an all-consuming boss. The veteran executive who is faced with the political and emotional jujitsu that accompanies most senior level roles. Have you ever said it? I’m done?
Permission…?
“Permission and relief,” said a Focus Group participant from the financial services industry. I’d asked the ladies that day to characterize transition using adjectives or single word descriptors. She’d just been laid off from a swanky well-known firm. She was taking a moment to think about what needed to be next for her. The prior job and the firm’s culture never really fit her. “I left my garage in the dark and returned in the dark.” She went on to add, “You know when you are putting kids through private college….you know you don’t give yourself permission.” Continue reading…
The Flotsam….
“Have you seen it?” said a woman to the cashier at the Superette. I was eavesdropping on the conversation. “The flotsam?” To that moment I’d never heard the word. Webster’s defines it as the wreckage of a ship or cargo that gets washed up by the sea. “Over many months,” the check-out line story went, “beachgoers” had created this awesome structure. What transpired was elegant. Homespun. Substantial. Continue reading…
Bucking Recession….
Do you keep your richness hidden? I know what you’re saying, What could she possibly mean by that? The thought struck me the other day as I interviewed a woman for my book. We spoke at length. I got the public, high level view right at the outset. Achiever. CPA. Job seeker. It wasn’t until well into the conversation that I finally learned about her. Continue reading…
Your path….forward
“We come back to ourselves only better,” shared an interviewee in a Voices of Transitions post from 2012. Her name was Maria. She described her transition as an experience that she was ‘in and out of’ over a decade. In that timeframe she experienced both intentional and unintentional transition. One occurred when she was pregnant and was unexpectedly limited to bedrest despite a strategic unraveling at her tech start-up employer. Another at a time when the care needs of her daughter required a full court press. Regardless of the triggers this decade long evolution required her to step out of her comfort zone and onto a new path… Continue reading…
Right of passage….
“The greatest invention there ever was,” said my neighbor. He was referring to bubbles while watching my children screech in delight as they ran around blowing and popping and laughing. Even this professorial neighbor who doesn’t offer much by way of conversation smiled and laughed. What a simple gift…. Continue reading…
Resilience….
Tomorrow we head to my nine-year old’s play-in game. If you are anything like me this play-in concept requires explanation. It refers to a duel played by the two last place baseball teams who are fighting for a spot in the playoffs. This season’s games were engaging and high scoring, like a recent 15-18 heart breaker that was given up in the last inning. The season tally? 3-12. Despite this lopsided record and the unruly behavior of the other teams these players never traded away their optimism nor their enthusiasm. Resilient seemed a perfect description for the team. Continue reading…
Transition: A cop-out?
“Nothing seems to be working,” shared a friend who was describing her job search. She’d been fully committed to work in the home for close to two years. Her decision to leave her last employer was a personal one. She’d had some life issues come up. An aging parent. Personal health issues. “I never thought it would be this hard,” she commented. She was talking about the difficulty to get back into her profession after an absence. She seemed incredibly sad. Unsure. Could this really be happening?
Listening to this friend I wondered if my pivot to a portfolio career is a cop-out? Is my transition crusade simply a shield created to protect me from the choppy waters that my friend is encountering?
Let me explain. Today – almost four years into a transition – I find myself juggling three part-time gigs, aka my portfolio career. Together their salaries represent a small fraction of my former compensation. On top of these sit a long list of community volunteering commitments in addition to the growing demands of two active elementary school-aged children.
Have I created this groundswell of activity to simply mute my awareness of the sheer impossibility of re-entering the world I exited?
What do you think?
William Bridges, author of Summer Book Review #2: Transitions – Making Sense of Life’s Changes stated “changes are driven to reach a goal, but transitions start with letting go of what no longer fits or is adequate to the life stage you are in.” (Transitions, Bridges, pg 128) Bridges introduces three phases to transition: “ending”; followed by an “empty zone” or “neutrality”; followed by a “beginning”. “In the first phase of “transition” or “ending” we break our connection with the setting in which we have come to know ourselves.” (Transitions, Bridges, pg 17)
I remember being frustrated reading Bridges’ book. He never really defined transition. Lately I’ve tried my hand at it.
Transition is a process which requires us to re-imagine our assumptions about identity, capacity or values. Any one or all three can be involved. The reality is that each of us has a decision to make when faced with the need to change: do we change or do we transition?
I’ve found that exploring the elements of transition, like identity, is about acknowledging the entirety of who we are instead of adopting a whole new persona. That said once the adoption occurs we may no longer resemble our former selves. Confusing? Let me try an example.
“Who am I if I’m not me?” shared a woman as she described her thinking at the outset of her transition. She’d served as a divisional president at large consumer products company. Accomplished. Highly committed. Hard charging.
Transition surprised her. She described ‘breathing’ for the first time. She used words like freedom. In transition her pursuits became less about someone else’s standards and more about her own. Transition connected her to new communities in which she was readily able to contribute – something that surprised her at first.
As I listened to this interviewee and my friend I kept playing an image in my head (see above). Could it be that transition asks us to acknowledge that we are comprised of many elements – some we emphasize, others we barely acknowledge. If so transition could allow us to dignify those elements that we’ve previously overlooked or combine elements that we’ve isolated or compartmentalized.
This interviewee went on and on about the emotional connection she’d been able to make with others in her work post-transition. Any guess? She derived great joy out of this yet is hadn’t been present in her previous roles.
I can’t help but wonder if my friend who is interviewing needs to listen to a more holistic view of herself. Maybe combining a few elements – even some previously ignored – could jump-start her thinking about what more could be possible.
I’m not sure I’ve settled on a new identity but I’ve adopted the humility and courage to keep exploring. The cop-out in isn’t so much in using transition as a shield but in ignoring our instincts that tell us one may be required.
Are you ready to listen, or even better, to begin?
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