Transitioning With Purpose

Personal and professional transitions often fail because people haven’t, or don’t take time to, prepare for success. There are many reasons for this, including:

• They may have a general idea of what they want to transition into, but not a specific plan for it.
• They may lack awareness of how certain personality characteristics impact how they navigate transitions.
• They overlook the importance of building a network and it becomes and afterthought; they don’t understand it’s value until they need something and realize that their “go-to person” is part of the old world, not the new world.

Professional transitions are critical times when small differences in your actions will have disproportionate impacts on results. It is a time when people are most vulnerable because they don’t completely understand the challenges they face, and haven’t developed the relationships they will need to succeed. All too often the first weeks are unstructured, as opposed to days with specific outcomes in mind. Good people can fail before they get started because of critical errors made due to a lack of planning.

We face similar challenges during personal transitions whether we’re transitioning into retirement, expanding our family, adjusting to an unexpected event, or perhaps moving across the state or even country. People waste a lot of time and experience a lot more stress when they fail to plan adequately for transitions.

Whether it’s a personal or professional transition, three things you can do to help ensure success are: Clearly define your purpose, cultivate optimism, and strategically build relationships.

Clearly Define Your Purpose

A clearly defined purpose is critical during transitions because the purpose is the lens through which you’ll interpret all events and make decisions. A clear purpose reflects your reason for being. Some people have an overall life purpose, but you can also define a purpose specific to the new chapter you’re beginning that will help ensure that you focus on what is important to you and accomplish what you want to achieve.
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Cultivate Optimism

Optimism is the tendency to focus on the positive aspects of situations and people, see opportunity where others may not, and generally expect positive outcomes. Optimism doesn’t mean ignoring the negative; it means accepting bad things when they happen and finding ways to move forward. During transitions, optimism helps to protect against stress and the illness that can accompany it. It also facilitates problem-solving and serves as a catalyst for taking action and moving more quickly through transitions to establishing a rewarding new chapter.
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Strategically Build Relationships

Nobody does it alone. To succeed in anything, we need the help and support of others. A new role at work may mean leaving well-established working and mentoring relationships and finding you now have neither. A personal transition may mean leaving close friends behind and moving somewhere where you don’t know anyone. Whether personal or professional, the challenge during a transition is to proactively build the relationships you will need to succeed by asking yourself, “Who do I need to know to achieve my purpose?”
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Are you in the midst of, or about to begin a transition in your personal or professional life? Read through the posts in this series for insight on things you can do you can successfully navigate transitions.

How optimistic are you?

As valuable as optimism is during transitions and beyond, it doesn’t come naturally to everyone. People often think they are more optimistic than they actually are. Consider the comments below. How many of them sound like something you’d say? If optimism doesn’t come naturally to you, it is worth cultivating to prevent feelings of helplessness, provide a buffer against illness, and to improve problem solving.

1. Schools are closed due to a snowstorm. It’s a great chance to catch up on some chores at home.
2. When the phone rings, I expect good news.
3. That presentation didn’t go well, but I learned a critical lesson that will help me nail the next one.
4. A reorganization means I’ll be out of a job in three months. That gives me an opportunity to regroup and decide what I want to do next.
5. I didn’t get the job I wanted, but I know I’ll find one if I keep looking.
6. I get asked to lead projects because I’m a good leader.
7. There’s always another way.
8. I’m having a bad day, but tomorrow will be better.
9. There is a way out of this; we just have to find it.
10. There is a lesson in every failure if you look for it.
11. I got the promotion because I’m good at my job.
12. When I smile and wave at someone and they don’t respond in kind, I assume they are having a bad day not that they are upset with me.
13. When I receive constructive criticism, I try to find a way to apply it.
14. Traffic is particularly bad today. That gives me the opportunity to mentally prepare for my day (or to listen to my favorite podcast).
15. I’m going to make this next chapter of my life the best one yet.

The more comments that resonated with you, the more likely you are to have an optimistic response to situations. It’s not the situation, but the response to the situation that indicates optimism or pessimism. Optimistic people view situations through the following four filters:

Permanence:

Optimists view negative events as temporary while pessimists believe, often in spite of evidence to the contrary, that they are permanent. For example, an optimistic response to an angry boss would be “My boss is disappointed in my performance on this project.” Rather than a pessimistic response of, “My boss hates me”. Optimists expect that with training, practice, etc. skills will develop while pessimists are more likely to say, “I’ll never be good at this.”

Pervasiveness:

Optimists generalize positive experiences and isolate the impact of negative ones. For example, an optimistic response to a missed sale would be to isolate the negative event by thinking “This one didn’t go well.” while a pessimistic response would be to generalize the negative by thinking, “These big opportunities never work out for me.” The opposite is true for positive events. An optimist could take a positive interaction in the morning and generalize it to, “This is a great day” while the pessimist would have a tendency to isolate the positive event and consider it temporary.

Personalization:

Optimists have a pattern of attributing positive events in their lives to an internal source and negative events to an external source. For example, an optimist who failed to meet a deadline for a project might say, “Things were unusually busy, and I misjudged how much I could do in this short period of time.” On the other hand, an optimistic response to meeting a deadline would be, “I have great time management skills.”

Hopefulness:

Optimists have a general belief that good things will happen and that their actions will lead to positive outcomes even when they are in the middle of a bad situation or period of time. They always have hope.

Optimism can be cultivated. If you’d like to begin to learn how to respond to events in your life, review our post on cultivating optimism.

If you’d like to uncover and clearly define your purpose but don’t know how to get started, you can begin by reflecting on the ten thought-provoking questions that follow. Don’t rush through them. Give yourself time to think about them. Writing your answers down in a journal will help you process them, and your purpose will begin to emerge.

Examples of purposes:

• Maya Angelou “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.”
• To be a coach known as a catalyst for helping people make meaningful change in their lives.
• To find a way to make a positive impact on someone every day.

Whether you need to define your purpose or simply refocus on a purpose that already guides you, a clear purpose is an essential piece of a successful transition.

Questions to define your purpose

1. What did I love to do as a child?
   Our passions are often rooted in childhood. They can be forgotten as we move through life conforming to others’ expectations and focusing on what we “should” do rather than what we want to do. Think of the things you did as a child that brought you the most joy. How did you spend your free time?
2. What activities make you lose track of time?
   Flow is what psychologists call the high-energy, highly productive state when people are so immersed in a task or activity that they lose track of time. When activities put you in the state of flow?
3. If I could wave a magic wand, what growth/change would I want to see in myself, my community, or the world?
   A magic wand allows yourself to think without restrictions. Don’t let perceived limits or the fear of failure get in the way of defining your purpose.
4. What causes you to bubble with energy and excitement?
   A true purpose energizes you because it taps into your true passion. It is the emotion that ultimately drives action. Don’t think about what you should do, focus on what excites you.
5. What would I do with my time if there were no limits?
   Don’t focus on an ideal job, focus on how you would choose to spend your time if there was nothing holding you back.
6. If you knew you were going to die one year from today, how would you spend that year?
   There is nothing like a sense of urgency to help prioritize what is truly important.
7. What are the greatest challenges you’ve overcome in life that you are most proud of?
   It may be that your purpose is connected to helping others overcome similar challenges.
8. What do you want your legacy to be?
   Considering how you’d like others to remember you can uncover what is most important to you.
9. If you had unlimited resources (time, money, people to help) how would you use them?
   Remove all barriers and focus on what you really want.
10. What goals are you most determined to achieve?
    We become tenacious when focusing on a meaningful purpose.

Giving yourself time to think about answers to these questions and reading over your answers will help you begin to see your authentic self and clear purpose. Read through the rest of the posts in our series on Transitioning with Purpose for additional insight on how you can successfully navigate the transitions in your personal and professional life.

Clearly Define Your Purpose

A purpose provides a sense of value and meaning that guides us through different chapters of life. A clear purpose reflects your reason for being and thus generates motivation and energy. Clarity of purpose is critical during transitions because your purpose is the lens through which you’ll interpret all events, evaluate options, and make all decisions. During your transition, a purpose helps you focus on what is important to you and accomplish what you want to achieve.

Those who lack a clear purpose are like a rudderless boat drifting in the ocean going wherever the wind takes them and reacting the best they can when the waves get choppy. Without a purpose, you’ll become reactive rather than intentionally charting your course. You’ll find that your stress increases as perceived control decreases, which can lead to a variety of physical, emotional, and psychological symptoms that can slow progress or stop it altogether.

“There’s no greater gift than to honor your life’s calling. It’s why you were born. And how you become most truly alive.”
– Oprah Winfrey

As you transition to your next chapter, a clear purpose will…

1. Drive action
Transitions are typically chaotic with a great deal of time wasted trying to figure out what to do. Defining your purpose sets your direction and puts you in control of the next chapter of your life. During transition, a purpose will help you see through the chaos and find the clarity you need to move forward. Like GPS, it will keep you on track and help you correct course when needed. A clearly articulated, meaningful purpose will focus and energize you to take action to achieve that purpose.

2. Build resilience
Transitions are full of challenges and potential setbacks that have the potential to derail us temporarily or even permanently. People who keep their purpose front of mind are more likely to find meaning in things that happen to them, allowing them to change course and bounce back from setbacks more quickly.

Consider Lisa, who was recruited as the HR Director from a rapidly changing company to one with a slowly changing culture. A core part of Lisa’s purpose is “always striving for improvement”. She quickly identified an opportunity to improve the company’s hiring process and made a significant change to the process during her second month. The change was vigorously resisted. Lisa had moved too fast for a culture she didn’t yet fully understand. Lisa identified her mistake and realized that she needed to take the time to understand the culture better before making a change of this magnitude. She bounced back from a significant setback by finding the lesson in her mistake that she could apply going forward as she continued to pursue her purpose of continuous improvement. Finding the lesson made the experience meaningful and kept Lisa from wallowing in the negative emotions that could otherwise be associated with the failure. Instead, the lesson energized her keep moving forward with a more informed approach.

3. Lead to a greater sense of fulfillment and satisfaction
There is a strong correlation between finding meaning in life and happiness. People who find meaning through their connection to a strong sense of purpose also tend to be happier. Those who lack a clear purpose are more likely to feel stuck and report feelings of sadness or apathy. Knowing you are making a meaningful contribution will flood you with a variety of positive, energizing emotions. The happier people feel, the more determined they are to live a life consistent with their purpose.

Have you ever wondered if your purpose is clear enough, complete enough, or even the right purpose for you? Your purpose isn’t something that you create, it is something that you uncover. You find it through self-reflection and increasing your understanding of who you are and what is important to you. You’ll know when you’ve identified and defined a meaningful purpose because it will spark a passion for action. You’ll wake up energized and ready to make a difference.

Strategically Build Relationships

Nobody does it alone. Success in anything requires the help and support of others, and too often we take these relationships for granted. Personal and professional relationships change during transitions. A new role at work may require leaving well-established working and mentoring relationships. A personal transition may mean leaving close friends behind and starting over in a new community. Whether personal or professional, the challenge during a transition is to proactively build the relationships you will need to thrive in your new situation. A network of strong personal and professional relationships will make a significant difference in whether you achieve your goals and how fulfilled you are along the way.

People get so focused on what they want to accomplish during transitions that building the relationships needed for success in the next chapter often takes a back seat. There are four different kinds of relationships that are beneficial during transitions, and it is critical to invest time in building all four of them.

1. Social
   Being around people you like not only makes whatever you’re doing more enjoyable, it also makes you more productive. For introverts, a warm greeting coming into work may be all it takes. Extroverts will benefit more from working with team members. Whether you are working, volunteering, or making the most of retirement, high-quality social relationships reduce stress, increase engagement and increase satisfaction.

   Social relationships don’t just impact your emotions and productivity, they impact your health and longevity. Researchers from Concordia University in Canada studied a group of international students who moved to Montreal. They found that students who were socially isolated during their transition were at greater risk of poor health while those with strong social networks were healthier overall.

   Are there people in your life who encourage you, listen to you, challenge you, and celebrate with you? This is important at all stages of life, but particularly for people transitioning into retirement. Retirement for many brings a sharp decline in the amount of contact with other people. Previous work relationships are gone, and it is important to prepare for the vacuum created and fill it with meaningful relationships in retirement.

2. Go-to people
   Go-to people are those people you turn to when you have an urgent need or problem. A list of go-to people is a life-saver during any transition and will save time and minimize stress. Go-to people provide fast answers and expedite resolution for all kinds of issues. They have the know-how, resources, and connections to solve problems quickly, which helps you focus on your highest priorities.

   Imagine that your transition includes moving to a new city. A month after you move a pipe bursts and your basement begins to flood. The difference between knowing who to call immediately and beginning the search for someone as the water rises can mean a difference of thousands of dollars and a good night’s sleep.

   You likely had a list of go-to people prior to your transition. While some of them will still work well in your new world, there will likely be gaps to fill. Determine the go-to people you need and begin making a list. The broader your social network, the more access to go-to people you’ll have.

   Don’t wait until you have a crisis to begin building your list of go-to people. Start making the list as soon as you transition and nurture it so it’s ready when you need it.

3. Personal Board of Directors
   Just like a company needs a Board of Directors for high-level guidance, you will benefit from a group of people who will serve as mentors and advisors. These are people you can turn to when you need a sounding board, have a complex situation to navigate, or when you have an important decision to make. These are people with the experience and knowledge to help you navigate challenges.

   This is especially helpful during transition because you’ll encounter new and unexpected challenges. Having a group of people whose knowledge and experience you can tap into increases your effectiveness exponentially. Your personal board consists of people you trust and respect whose successes and failures will help you through your transition and beyond. They aren’t there to tell you what you want to hear, they are they to tell you what you need to hear.

   Earl is an attorney who has been a trusted advisor for our family for most of my life. I learned the importance of having a trusted advisor by watching my dad turn to him over the years for personal and professional advice. As an adult, Earl became a vital part of my personal board. I rely on his expertise for a variety of complex issues and use him as a sounding board when a particularly difficult decision needs to be made. People like Earl are invaluable during a transition and beyond. Do you have an Earl?

4. Strategic partners
   Strategic partners are influential people that others respect and listen to. There are influencers all around us. While they may not always have an impressive title, they are vital to helping us accomplish our goals and key initiatives.

   These are the people in meetings others turn to when making a decision to gauge their level of buy in to a new idea. These are the people who upon hearing an idea they believe in will gather the support and resources to make it happen.

   For example, a person who has decided to write a book or start a foundation in retirement will be more successful if there is a key influencer involved who can provide ideas and make introductions to get it done. Strategic partners are invaluable during transitions. Do you have relationships with any?

“You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” Charles Jones

Given the importance of all four types of relationships during transition, it is important to choose them deliberately.

Who is going to support you after a setback? Who will you turn to when you need to have some fun and recharge? Who will help you solve an immediate personal or professional problem? Who will partner with you to make the difference you want to make? Your time is limited, so choose wisely.

How do you find time to build relationships when transitions are so busy?

The first step is understanding how important these relationships are to successfully navigating your transition. We tend to prioritize things that are important to us. While you might begin by putting a few extra coffee, lunch, and happy hour meetings in your calendar, smaller efforts during daily interactions can also go far toward building and nurturing relationships. The following list is just a few ideas to get you started:

• Use the time waiting for a meeting to begin talking to other members of your team instead of being on your device.
• Take the time to introduce yourself to your new neighbors when you get the mail.
• Take advantage of the social opportunities offered at work or in your neighborhood.
• Join a gym or a company team to meet people while your exercise.
• Find opportunities to volunteer and you’ll meet people with similar values.
• Take a class in something you’ve never done before and you’ll meet people with different experiences and perspectives.
• Start with people you already know, even if you only know one person. Ask that person for introductions to others and begin fleshing out your new network.

Remember, nobody does it alone. A successful transition requires the help and support of others. As you transition, you will likely leave some or all of your network behind. Prioritize developing relationships and building a new network for a more efficient and effective transition.

Cultivate Optimism

Optimism is the tendency to focus on the positive aspects of situations and people, identify opportunity others may not see, and generally expect positive outcomes. Optimism doesn’t mean ignoring the negative; it means accepting setbacks when they happen, believing that there is a path to something better, and looking for ways to move forward.

People who believe that setbacks are temporary, limited to a specific situation, and manageable tend to be optimists. They believe there are ways to overcome obstacles even when they haven’t yet found the way. It is the expectation that they can find a way that drives them to keep trying. Their belief that their failures are temporary and situation specific allows them to bounce back from setbacks quickly.

Optimism is a valuable asset during any transition. At the outset, it will help you look for the best opportunities and aim high. When you encounter difficulties, optimism helps reframe situations, so you stay motivated and continue moving forward. Fortunately, optimism isn’t an immutable character trait, but something you can develop.

When you cultivate optimism, you will…

1. Exert more effort during transitions
   Transitions are full of obstacles. Optimists believe that their efforts will lead to favorable outcomes, so they persist when faced with obstacles. Pessimists have a greater tendency to disengage because they don’t believe their efforts will pay off, which can result in feelings of helplessness. Because they are willing to try and try again, optimists tend to experience more efficient and effective transitions.
2. Enjoy better health and energy
   The uncertainty and volume of work during transitions are common sources of stress that over time can weaken the immune system, leaving you more susceptible to illness and burnout. Optimism shields people from stress because optimists tend to interpret situations in a way that doesn’t elicit a stress response.

   For example, an optimist who hears “no” when presenting an idea will respond with an “I’ll get the next one” or “I’ll try another approach” attitude. Optimists focus on their next move, not on the loss. By focusing on what they can do about a situation, the optimist maintains a sense of control that reduces stress.

   Optimists also tend to let go of setbacks before they take a physical or mental toll. Pessimists have a greater tendency to ruminate about setbacks and get stuck in the negative emotions associated with them, which exacerbates stress. Optimists tend to reframe setbacks and move on before stress intensifies to unhealthy levels.

3. Improve Problem Solving
   Excessive negative thinking tends to exacerbate and prolong problems. People stuck in negative thinking patterns have less mental energy to find effective or creative solutions when problems arise. Because optimists spend less time focusing on the negative, they have more cognitive resources available to find a solution. They don’t pretend everything is fine. They believe it will be in spite of the problem and search for a way to make it happen.

Three ways to cultivate optimism:

1. Find the positive
   Even people who have a natural tendency toward seeing the negative in a situation can deliberately search for the positive.

   “Two men looked out from behind prison bars. One saw mud and the other saw stars.” Dale Carnegie

   Both the mud and the stars are real. Even if you tend to notice the mud first, you can intentionally look up and find the stars.

   A gratitude journal is a great way to deliberately focus on the positive. Taking the time to journal helps you process events and release negativity associated with them. When you include what you’re grateful for, your focus and emotions shift in a positive way. Even during times when everything seems to be going wrong, there are things to be grateful for if you simply look for them. Search for them, and you will find them.

2. Find what you can control
   Don’t waste energy focusing on things that you can’t control. There are elements of every situation that you can control. If nothing else, you can manage your response. Choosing a response in line with your purpose will give you a greater sense of control over a situation and mitigate the stress associated with it.

   Sharon began her retirement in 2008. Although she didn’t know it at the time, it was the beginning of the great recession. After working diligently her whole life to prepare for retirement, everything suddenly changed for her. Sharon allowed herself very little time to dwell on her loss before reminding herself that she can’t control what the market does. Her financial situation changed and became a setback during her transition into retirement. Focusing on the problem or unfairness of the situation wasn’t going to help her; Sharon needed to move forward to fix it. She instead focused on the things she could control and began taking action toward achieving the financial goals that would enable her to have the retirement she wanted. Focusing on what she could control helped Sharon change her focus from the negativity of the situation to moving toward a solution.

3. Hang out with optimists
   The people with whom you associate influence your perception of yourself and the world around you. If you surround yourself with people who focus on the positive, expect the best, and encourage you to keep moving forward, you are more likely to do just that. You will have people around you, some of whom you love, who are pessimists. They are not bad people you need to banish from your life, and their pessimism also has value. Just be aware of how those around you impact your world view and response to challenges. During transitions, it is especially helpful to prioritize time with people who will reinforce an optimistic outlook.

Transitions can be both exciting and challenging. You will likely face unexpected obstacles and setbacks. Cultivating optimism will help you overcome obstacles and bounce back from setbacks so you can keep moving forward through the transition to the new chapter and beyond.