Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes

As someone who has made three distinct professional pivots that originated in a completely predictable profession (architecture), the topic of transitions is important to me. Mainly because there were times when I felt ill-equipped to deal with them.

Bridges’ book Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes is a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand the internal dynamics associated with external changes. This is also the book’s main message: change is an external event, while a transition is an internal experience.

Change may happen in an instant (we lose our job, we end a relationship, we move to a new city), but according to Bridges’ model, a transition unfolds over time and in three distinct phases:

The “ending” comes first. In our rush to just move on we typically bypass an opportunity to acknowledge and understand the situation we are exiting. Turns out this can be a fatal flaw, as we bring the proverbial baggage from our prior experience along with us.

To fully process the ending phase, Bridges offers a classic coaching questions: What is no longer serving you? What is it time to let go of? Note, this is not a person, place, or thing that needs to be let go. It’s an idea, a belief, or an assumption that may have played a role in your past success but is now creating an obstacle for moving into the future.

Once you can set those thoughts aside (perhaps first acknowledging and celebrating how they helped you get where you are today), you are ready to move on to the second phase of transition. This is the neutral zone, a bit of a netherworld where we have the opportunity to learn about ourselves. This can be an uncomfortable place, a place of emptiness and loss or disappointment. Since self-awareness is not typically on our daily to-do list, our tendency is to skip it and get on to the new thing as quickly as possible. In the author’s words (tongue-in-cheek):

“Transition is seen as a kind of street-crossing procedure. One would be a fool to stay out there in the middle of the street any longer than was necessary; so, once you step off the curb, you move on to the other side as fast as you can. And whatever you do, don’t sit down on the centerline to think things over!”

But spending some time sitting on the centerline (or whatever you are in the middle of) is exactly what is needed in the neutral zone. This is the time to explore what might be out there, just waiting for you to discover it. What dreams keep invading your waking hours? What gives you energy when it comes to mind? Bridges offers another classic coaching exercise that asks us to consider a personal filing cabinet containing folders with titles like “A Crazy Idea I Just Know Wouldn’t Work . . . But That Fascinates Me,” or “The Books I’ve Found Myself Reading Recently.” What might be hiding in your filing cabinet?

The third transition phase is the new beginning. The momentum from a productive neutral zone sets up this phase as a time of enormous creativity, of renewed energy and a sense of purpose. Use what you discovered in the neutral zone to guide your action, but take it just one step at a time.  

In my coaching practice the new beginning gets translated this way: discovering your next best thing is not a question of right or wrong. There is no single path to success, and (by the way) you get to define what success looks like. It’s about taking thoughtful, deliberate action, and to make your next move one that is on purpose. Ultimately, a transition is an opportunity to learn who you are.