If Adam Grant were here, he’d tell us it’s better to be a giver than a taker, and I’d agree — except I’m going to spend the next five blog entries encouraging you to take. Stay tuned for five detailed prompts that will help you navigate transition and reimagine your next chapter, organizationally and/or personally.
The first is “Take Stock.” Be honest about where you find yourself.
I recommend four tools that help — pull out what you need:
- Pause. If you don’t stop, or at least slow down, you won’t notice the true state of things. For some of us, that’s a very familiar coping strategy. It takes more courage than you might think to change your rhythm. Build in space for reflection, even if it’s unfamiliar or scary to do so. You need to breathe more deeply and look around. Specifically how could you build in a mini-sabbatical, for a week, a day or even an hour? Could you put something in your calendar before you read further?
- Acknowledge. You might be off track or exhausted. You could be experiencing mission drift or boredom. Maybe you’ve been growing and climbing and striving and… you just aren’t about it anymore. Or it could be that a leading role you’ve been playing isn’t fitting you well these days. Whatever it is, once you’ve paused, take time to notice, candidly, where things stand.
- Locate. It can help to put your observations into a wider context. For example, many people describe transitions in three phases: an ending, the messy middle and a new beginning — where are you in that cycle right now? For lots of us, we can be in several of those places at once as we navigate more than one transition at a time. Map it out and see what comes up.
- Feel. Don’t move on from this moment too quickly. If something big is wrapping up, it’s appropriate to grieve that ending. If the messy middle feels like you’re swimming in thick mud, name that. You might be petrified at the new beginning that is starting to appear, even if it’s something you’ve wanted — feel that fear. It’s all part of building readiness to move forward.
Again, these tools can be useful for individuals or organizations — if you are a corporate leader, consider them through both lenses.
And if these ideas stir something in you that you’re not sure what to do with, reach out. Fogginess is a common symptom of change. I’d be happy to hop on a call and find some clarity together.