What to do in seasons of transition? This week on the How Leaders Lead podcast, Tom Wilson shared what I think is the perfect visual for what it feels like to be in the middle of a major (or minor!) transition in your life:

“If you watch gymnastics, it’s like the high bar and the low bar. Let’s say the low bar is your current success, you’re going to have to let go of the low bar to get to the high bar. You’re going to go back to the low bar occasionally, but you’ve got to let go. Keep changing.” He sees reinvention as a key to leadership, and that this moment of change starts with honest: “be honest with yourself about who you are.”

If you are swinging through the air trying to see and grasp what is next, you are probably at a moment of life change. Whether it is deciding that it’s time for a new role – or maybe others have decided this for you – or starting to feel that it is time, really time, to examine what is next, I wanted to share some ideas and some thoughts for you to consider.

Across so many conversations and experiences over the past week, this has come up again and again, and the theme presented itself in the things I read and listened to. So if this is you, deciding what is next, consider myself, and the below ideas and authors, companions on that journey. It’s a road we all take at one point or another: what do we want to do next? We are always changing and becoming, and in some seasons that means literally a new job, or a new role, or the closing of a chapter that we truly loved. At some point, we all take steps into the unknown.

Some thoughts for you if you’re on that journey:

1. Ask yourself two questions: what would I do for free? what would I do if I won the lottery? In his book, Rebound, Matt Doherty talks about the devastation of being let go as the head coach at UNC basketball. In the book he writes about the dissapointment, the sad details, of that forced exit. He had to reinvent himself and redefine his core. The question is posed to him years later: what would you do if you won the lottery? And he honestly says: this. I’d be coaching, speaking and sharing about how to take that bitterness and turn it into something that others could use to find their own alignment, and their own next step. What would your answer be?
2. Back to the low bar and the high bar. Tom Wilson talks about how when you love what you do “work isn’t work, it’s a hobby.” Make a list of your hobbies. What are they? Could one of those become work? If you can’t find out how to do that thing for your livelihood by doing it for someone else (and for $$!) or can you build it? Today, a lot of people build a lot of things. Could you be one of those people? Are you a secret entrepreneur?
3. Build courage in community. We often imagine the courageous person up there, alone on a mountain top. Facing the unknown. There is probably some rain or wind involved. They’ve got a lot of grit! Ok… yes, there are absolutely moments when you are going to have to stand on your own two feet and scream into the void. But honestly, not often and that sounds cold. You do not have to do this alone. Last week, I shared Mattering, by Jennifer Breheney Wallace, and she talks about vulnerability in community as it pertains to mattering. You can’t matter by yourself. You need to matter to others, and they need to matter to you. Reach out. Send the text. Take that person you admire to coffee. They get it, they’re in it too. Don’t do this alone.
4. Mindset matters: a career transition can feel like an entire identity shift. But here is the truth: you can, and should, be changing every day whether you’ve been at your company for 40 years or you’ve held three jobs in the past 5. To change mindset, let’s reframe courage: we often see courage as decisive action. Instead, let’s take a more layered approach. Courage as strength and tenacity through known or unknown obstacles. Courage as power through vulnerability.
5. To build this type of courage means building the plane while flying it. You build it by letting go of that lower bar. Yes you can read, yes you can have conversations with everyone (me!) or anyone. But you, swinging through the air in the in-between, are developing the courage you need to grasp that higher bar. You are building the muscle memory that you need to move forward, because you are literally watching yourself taking steps through uncertainty.

Whether you’re swinging through the air, building the courage to let go of bar 1, or have firmly grasped your new role or your big decision, might I recommend The First 90 Days. This is the book to read before, during or after changes. It gives you a systems view of change management for the leader in transition. My overview is brief but concise, and I fully recommend the book. It’s great read as you prepare to interview, as you take the reins, or as you’re letting go of an old role. It will give you the questions to ask, and helps you take a firm view at the situation of the organization and team that you are taking on. It’s the playbook you need and is a guide worth owning, reading, re-reading, and re-visiting.

If you’re feeling that vulnerable feeling of change, that’s the signal that you are building that muscle of courage. Reach out. I’m here, your friends are here, people across your life are here. It may be the moment to reach out to someone you haven’t connected to in a while to get their perspective. It may be a moment to go sit alone on the mountaintop (bring a rain jacket!) but don’t stay up there for long. You can and will do this, and you’ll be much better off if you do it in community. Lots of love! -Alison