Career Transitions

When I was studying for my boards I learned that moving house is one of the greatest stressors in a person’s life. Something similar could be said about a significant change in work — and yet we rarely treat it that way.

There is a great deal you can’t know going into a transition, and whether or not you’re conscious of it, it upsets your nervous system. Most jobs carry a social world with them — co-workers, coalitions, a power structure you’ve learned to navigate. You were a known identity: people knew what you were good at, where you stood, what to expect of you in that particular context. And so, for that matter, did you. A transition — whether a promotion, a lateral change, a career change, working from a home office, or retiring — doesn’t just change what you do. All of that is disturbed, at precisely the moment when you’re simply too busy to budget for how different things feel, particularly to your nervous system.

Regardless of the specific transition you are navigating, the stakes can feel high. Perhaps you are just starting out, anxious about the future of your career, doing everything you can to nurse its trajectory. Or you keep hitting a ceiling — whether due to factors external to you, or something you are somehow contributing to without realizing it. Or you are well up the ladder and wondering whether you even like what you’ve built. Approaching the end of a long career and struggling with what it means to leave, or worried about leaving differently than you would want to. Or simply caught at a crossroads, without knowing what to do next.

A transition can call up many different emotions: hope, anticipation, anxiety, fear, pride, sadness, regret, loss, anger. It helps not to forget to give yourself space to experience and process those feelings along with the practical demands of change. People tend to prioritize the logistics — particularly in something as consequential as a career transition. And yet settling things internally, giving your body and nervous system the time to process change and uncertainty, often makes the practical questions clearer and easier to resolve than trying to force clarity before you’re ready.

See also: When a Life Change Forces the Question — a deeper exploration of what transition actually asks of a person.
See also: The Apps You Can’t Close — on what sustained pressure does to the body and nervous system.
See also: personal development coaching and life changes.