Are You Commanding Your Transition?

Posted on August 30, 2016 by Justin Jensen, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

(article originally posted on grit2great.life)

I find transitions come in all shapes and sizes.

Sometimes they show up in the form of breaking up with your significant other.

Sometimes the job you thought you had goes up in smoke.

Your career makes a sudden nose dive left when you thought you were going right.

…and if you’re like most people, you’ve probably gone through a few transitions before.

(I know I have!)

That said, transitions happen all the time and without necessarily losing anything. We can readily identify the transitions we had in life by loss, but what about the transitions happening right now?

We’re constantly in a state of transition, and in my opinion, nothing is static. We’re either progressing or regressing because we’re always in a state of motion. Going forward, going backward, going forward, going backward…

But this is all by CHOICE. We’re either choosing to move forward and act accordingly. Or we’re sabotaging ourselves by picking up habits and taking actions that don’t grow us.

Either way, you choose.

What are the causes of a major transition?

More than anything else, I find when we experience a sudden loss (job, girlfriend, etc) the reality of it hits the core area of our WHY.

Why did this happen to me?

What did I do wrong? Where did I go wrong?

What do I do now?

What I mean by this is: our original Why that was tied to the loss ceases to exist. It’s a like a part of us died in a way.

(Not to sound so morbid but…it’s true)

What happens during this period of loss is one of two things. We either get destroyed by it and go to places we didn’t know we were capable of going. OR we get motivated by it. Super motivated by it.

What to do, oh, what to do…

For my guest Travis, he was in the middle of his career when he realized two things.

1) There was a ceiling for who he was and where he wanted to go within the Coast Guard.
2) He woke up one day and realized all the “Whys” he signed up for have been completed.

So, now what?

The re-connection to Why…

During his off time, Travis would hang in San Francisco or Silicon Valley. He noticed there were so many people taking command of their lives by finding a way to serve those around them through building businesses. He realized that while he had found a great path for him to serve, he was quickly coming up to a new path and direction he wanted to take.

He did this by starting to work on himself more and diving into a period of self-discovery.

(Which, if you notice, we tend to do this when we’re faced with a loss)

For him, he lost his original Why and started crafting a new one.

Here’s how he did it:

1) What are his passions? Writing and helping others succeed. Specifically, writing to help others, running “sprint” weekends called Command Your Weekend, and fictional writing.

2) How can he do this? Becoming an author by writing books, posting articles on LinkedIn, joining groups he would like to serve on LinkedIn, answering questions, and creating social media content.

3) What is his working style? He likes to be able to travel, he wants to focus on a very specific niche, and by doing so, working smarter and not necessarily harder. It’s important for him to enjoy his life and chill from time to time.

Benefits of self-discovery

Sometimes we have to take a good hard look in the mirror.

What am I doing and why am I doing it?

Am I living in accordance to who I am or am I living someone else’s life?

Sometimes, we get so trapped by our day to day stuff (routines, habits, etc) that we forget to look up to see if there are better options for us.

I’m not talking about dumping your boyfriend or girlfriend and getting a new one.

I’m not talking about quitting your job today and go traveling.

What I’m talking about are options with what you currently have.

Are there ways to spice up your relationship?

Are there strategies you can deploy to get a raise or move higher up in the company?

If corporate life isn’t for you, then what can you do to build your own business? What’s it going to take?

If you lost your Why, what’s your new Why?

If you don’t know these answers then this is a good time to start coming up with them. This is a great time to re-connect with yourself and check in.

Every day we have the option to make the time to live in accordance to who we are OR live someone else’s life. We have the option to put in small deposits of our time to work on ourselves, our future, and build, build, build. It’s your future, build it.

But at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself….

Who’s really in command of your transition?

Stay up,
Justin