If your life and career are familiar and comfortable, why rock the boat? But without regularly checking in with yourself, assessing the lay of the land, and preparing options for what might lie ahead, you can be hit with a transition that feels like hitting a brick wall.
What it looks like from the outside
I’ve seen a co-founder who built a company for years, assuming he and his partner were building it together, until the day his partner walked without warning. He was left scrambling to hold the business together and rebuild a new plan he’d never imagined needing.
A founder was pushed out of the company he started. One day he had a title, a team, a sense of fulfilling a dream. The next day he had none of those, and realized he had no idea what to do instead.
A technical writer worked long hours, running on empty for years, trying to make a difference in her company. By the time chronic fatigue and burnout caught up with her, she couldn’t see her way out.
None of these people were careless or in denial in any obvious way. They were simply living the way most of us do, forward and focused on what’s in front of us. It’s easy to assume there will be time later to ask the bigger questions.
Two transitions of my own
At one software company, an announcement went out that our whole department was closing. It was a hard day. People around me were shocked, grieving jobs they thought were secure.
I had to hide my own relief, because that very morning I’d received a job offer. I’d seen the writing on the wall a few months earlier, because I’d been paying attention to what was happening with the company.
Other times, I didn’t see it coming at all.
My transition out of software into coaching was the opposite. I couldn’t imagine a life beyond software, because my whole identity was tied up in that industry. Even when I started collecting multiple joint injuries, I just pushed through the pain.
My body tried to tell me something was wrong long before I was willing to hear it. It was only when I was facing a series of surgeries if I kept going that I finally stopped and looked up.
So here’s the question underneath all of it, the one I wish I’d asked myself sooner: is your body or intuition trying to tell you that you’re pushing through on autopilot, instead of living toward what actually matters most to you?