Mind the gap – managing the messiness of career transitions
When moving from one role to another, or one profession to something completely different, don’t ignore the inner work that makes for clarity and a flying start in your new career. By understanding how transition is different from change, you can consciously navigate the uncertainty that lies between your past identity and the future you.
“Change starts with an ending”
It’s increasingly likely that over a whole career we’ll inhabit several different professional roles – possibly more than one at the same time. Predictable, linear and mapped careers are probably long gone.
But what happens when you change from one profession to another? Or when you leave behind one area of expertise to dive into a new one?
While there are many practical issues to contend with like securing a new job, setting up a business, saying goodbye to colleagues, moving house or country – all big enough aspects of change by themselves – there are also silent shifts occurring out of sight.
William Bridges spent many decades researching and writing about the distinction between change and transition:
‘Change is the external event or situation that takes place: a new business strategy, a turn of leadership, a merger or a new product. The organization focuses on the desired outcome that the change will produce, which is generally in response to external events. Change can happen very quickly.
Transition is the inner psychological process that people go through as they internalize and come to terms with the new situation that the change brings about.’
If you pay full attention to both of these, you’ll be setting yourself up for an easier and more successful new start.
Who are you – professionally?
If you’d asked me in each decade of my long and varied career, I would have given you rather different answers about who I was professionally.
I’ve picked out the highlights for each decade of my career below - and while you could never say there was a master plan, with each change I was moving towards something that mattered more.
20s English teacher
Women Returners trainer
30s Adult education tutor
Business owner
40s MPhil student
University lecturer
Career guidance student
Careers Advisor
University Career Service Leader
50s University Lecturer
PhD student
Career Consultant
Literary festival programmer
Radio presenter
Literary Event Moderator
Book Reviewer
Career Coaching student
60s Career Change Coach and Business Owner
While I now have my own career coaching practice, so claim the title of business owner, I’m still a career change specialist and a teacher. I’d say my professional identity has gradually evolved to make best use of my strengths, interests, values and emerging purpose.
For many, choosing to combine more than one professional stream at once is also becoming more likely – the gig economy, portfolio careers, coupled with advancing technology and more flexible attitudes to work practices have all made this far more do-able.
Covid has accelerated this evolution and it’s unlikely that we’ll revert to ‘as-we-were’ once the pandemic is under better control.
Whether or not you have actively sought out new professions over your career, losing professional identity can still be painful. How then, can we manage the inevitable transitions from one profession to another?
Embracing new identities – and letting go of the old
When moving from one profession to another, it may feel like a very distinctive part of who you are also changes. And if you are suddenly made redundant, your professional identity can take an even deeper hit.
Let’s be honest, some of us identify more closely with our professional self than others.
It can be hard to let go of a role when we’ve identified closely with ourselves as a teacher / pilot / singer / web designer. But if you hang onto an identity that no longer fits and which belongs in the past, it’s very much harder to be truly open to new opportunities.
When I had to leave behind a job and organization I loved, I knew I had to consciously un-couple that self-identification of ‘Becky as literary festival programmer’, and open up to the new professional identity of ‘Becky the MBA career consultant’.
That didn’t mean the skills and personal qualities I’d developed in my former role didn’t come along into my new one – far from it – but it did make it easier for me to embrace my new role as a fresh challenge. Why?
I was now facing forwards, not leaning back
With my eyes fixed on the path ahead, I was ready to lean into this new role with a positive mindset and open heart.
How to let it go?
First of all, recognize that this is a period of transition.
William Bridges’ model of transition helps illustrate the journey:
What was innovative in this model is the acknowledgment that we don’t step directly from the end of one phase in our lives to another – there is a messy and unpredictable ‘neutral zone’ to navigate too.
When we let go of where we were and the roles we identified with - an English teacher, a business consultant or accountant - we then enter ‘an in-between time when the old is gone but the new isn’t fully operational.’
I suggest this space doesn’t always feel ‘neutral’. It can feel a lot like floundering in hostile waters! But I agree that when you know what’s going on here, it’s possible to see the neutral zone as ‘the seedbed of new beginnings.’
Once you’ve admitted that a previous professional identity belongs to the past, you’re releasing yourself for future success. This is one reason I created a self-guided process to travel better across the professional threshold into a new working life or into a new season of your life as a whole.
INSPIRED – starting again with confidence walks you through each step on this journey. The process includes:
· Valuing and releasing the past
· Anchoring into what’s important in the present
· Envisioning a successful future
· Walking into and claiming that future with clarity and confidence
Instead of hanging on to feelings like loss, regret, blame or sadness, you’ll be free to acknowledge the realities of your new situation and meet your future with optimism, hope and confidence. You’ll feel lighter and much more purposeful.
Celebrate your experiences
While you learn to release a previous professional identity and make conscious space for the next, you’ll also be able to honour what brought you here.
Your experience, strengths, achievements, professional and personal skills and mindsets all combine to make you the person you are today. So be selective about which of these you draw on as you start your new role.
William Bridges puts it well:
Beginnings involve new understandings, values and attitudes. Beginnings are marked by a release of energy in a new direction – they are an expression of a fresh identity. Well-managed transitions allow people to establish new roles with an understanding of their purpose, the part they play, and how to contribute and participate most effectively. As a result, they feel reoriented and renewed.
Careers are changing. Very few people can expect to end their career in the same profession as they began fresh out of school. The world is far more volatile and unpredictable than that. Change is becoming more likely, necessary and speedy. So learning how to navigate career change is a vital tool for your own career wellbeing.
Imagine looking back at your career from the age of 80 and you’re likely to have a long list – including all the many roles that you haven’t yet created or evolved into. So when you feel you’ve lost your professional identity, remind yourself that you will create something new. And it’s likely to be better, because it will build on what has gone before.
If you want to find out more about the process of a fruitful transition, take a look at my online course here. It’s available at a special Covid price (£29) for the foreseeable future so that more people can claim a powerful new start.
And if you’d like to discuss your future career options, just use the button below to set up a career consultation.
P.S. If you’re wondering how I created the spot map of my professional identities, I used a template on Canva – free to use. You might find it helpful to do the same, especially if you’re a visual person.
P.P.S. If you’d like to get a clear handle on your own career story, you might find ‘Joining the Dots in your Career Transitions’ workbook helpful. Just contact me for your free copy or leave me a message in the comments below.