Continuing this month’s theme of Leadership Style exploration, today we’ll discuss a topic that surfaces quite often during client conversations: Transition.
No matter where you are in your leadership and life journey, transitions hold tremendous power for us and sometimes over us. Depending on our mindset, transitions have the power to propel us forward or hold us back.
If you’ve ever felt “stuck”, chances are you’ve held on to something, or possibly someone, too long. Fear of “letting go” is often fueled by the discomfort of an uncertain future. The discomfort of what you know seems somehow less painful than the fuzzy future which refuses to clarify itself despite your desires. Less esoterically put….fear of failure keeps you hanging on too long. And looking back, you often wonder why you hung on so long anyway.
So how do you summon the strength and power to lean into the scary unknown, The Next Transition?
A few thoughts…
1. Shred the Dread – Shift your attitude from fear to freedom. Embrace the transition. The more you resist the transition the more you limit your incoming opportunity. You want to ensure you’re in the best possible position to succeed in life always. Ask yourself if that’s your current position. If it’s not, you’re hanging on, and a one-handed grip of fear is always precarious.
2. Realize You’re Not That Special – Every transition you experience is common to humanity; I guarantee it. Someone else has navigated these turbulent waters before you. Seek voices of experience. Speak your struggle aloud and you will be amazed at the wealth of experience in your network just waiting to be tapped.
3. You’ve Done It Before – I realize this transition may be unnerving or that you feel like you’ve never done “this” before. But the power to transition is simply the power to live – you’ve done that over and over again, you just haven’t labeled it this way.
You’ve transitioned from middle school to high school (ugh, remember that?), you may have transitioned to college away from home, you’ve transitioned into the workforce, you may have transitioned into parenthood (no manual for that!), you may have transitioned into being a widow, or a retiree, or an adult, caregiving for an aging relative.
Transition, transition, transition.
Never easy, possibly exciting, sometimes scary, always empowering.
Failure to transition is failing to live life fully.
Live life fully.
The path forward emerges as you step forth, not before.
If you know it’s time to stop hanging on, and propel yourself forward, having a Thought Partner to walk with you on your leadership journey is a must.
