Transition Periods are Perfect for Transformations

Posted on January 09, 2020 by AJ Jeedigunta, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

My biggest transition in life so far (even more so than recovering from my own death) happened about nine months after I became a first time mother. When my daughter was born, I was suddenly responsible for the life and growth of a whole new little human being; and she did not come with an operating manual. I had a tough time making sense of my new role in life, or accepting the drastic changes it entailed. There was no maternal “instinct” to rely on because I had zero experience with newborn babies until I had my own child, and, because the idea of that instinct is a myth. So, I spent the first six or seven months of my daughter’s life in a complete fog, operating on autopilot, while I simultaneously learned how to be a consistent caregiver and battled hormonal fluctuations, migraines and post partum depression.

When she was about nine months old, I remember the random afternoon when I was watching her try to roll around in her playpen acting all cute as she looked up at me. A thought suddenly struck me that at some point in the future she is going to grow up to be a communicative child with questions. She might ask me what I do, what I like, what makes me happy, and what I think my purpose is. That was the instant that the way I saw my life changed. Everything I am today and the foundation of everything I want to become in the future goes back to that transitional moment. I could have continued to wallow in the negativity that I hadn’t even realized I sank into until that point in time. Instead, by reframing the change and by realizing the untapped potential within it, for the sake of my child, I was able to realize some fundamental things about myself.

In a very broad sense, such life transitions help us realize the impermanence of the status quo in life, and, of the inevitability of change. These very necessary teachings inform us that transitions could be monumentally valuable to our personal growth and development, as long as we invest the time in ourselves to understand these benefits. Here are a few benefits:

1.) Life transitions are the right moment for us to take control of our own mental wellbeing.
Transitions are hard because they tend to destroy any routine or predictability up to those moments of change. Even annually expected seasonal changes have been known to be correlated to psychological and mental wellbeing challenges such as Seasonal Affective Disorder, and increased bouts of depression and anxiety. The really enormous changes that happen in our lives – especially if they are unexpected and involve death – wreak havoc within us. It can be thoughtlessly simple and automatic to get lost in the emotional chaos that comes with change, especially with any type of negative, unanticipated transitions that are not planned.

However, our life transitions – positive or negative; anticipated or unexpected – can also be exactly what we need to realize our strengths, reframe our mindsets, and truly gain agency and responsibility over our own emotional states and mental health. They are moments in which we can maximize our own growth by being brutally candid, honest and transparent with ourselves, about our feelings and motivations. These phases of evolution can enable us to shine a very high powered spotlight on the exact things in life that drive us forward, and those factors that we use as excuses or reasons to hold us back.

2.) Life transitions can help clarify our focus on what is really and truly important to us.
Transitions are usually times when our lives may feel especially rushed, unplanned, and out of our control. They are often the times when we feel like we are just bounced around by the various forces exerting external control over our situations. And, they are usually when we feel a lack of focus and clarity as we blindly go into the changes that are in store for us.

However, all of the countless little annoyances that we go through when we have to drastically change aspects of our life can be learning moments, if we frame them as such. When we realize this, we can gather a lot of personal data about ourselves with regard to our identities, values, passions, purpose, mission and goals. In a sense, our transitions can be our own KonMari-esque purges. We can take the time to reorganize our lives and our priorities, in ways that make sense for our progress and growth. We can get rid of all the senseless routines, limiting beliefs and roadblocks that we naturally build up along our journeys. By doing this, we can get back to our cores and strengthen our personal foundations.

3.) Life transitions can empower us to identify the opportunities in our lives for growth and development.
Once our focus has been clarified and strengthened, we start seeing opportunities through the changes we have to go through. We can even start guiding our growth and development in the directions that would benefit us the most. We can identify areas that we want to, or should grow in, and those where we are focusing too much attention unnecessarily. Transitions in life are powerful at reminding us of the permanence of change. In giving us this reminder though, transitions can also profoundly effective at empowering us to take control of the changes we want to make in our lives, by making salient the possibilities and potentials we have in our futures.

4.) Life transitions are the perfect time to create, amend or fine-tune all the systems in our lives to maximize our success.
The great thing about transitions is that they are not just the ends of the previous chapters of our lives; they are also the beginnings of new ones. Because of this, they are uniquely powerful in helping us focus on our habits, behaviors, attitudes, and systems that we have in our lives. Whether these systems are about happiness, productivity, efficiency, success, or growth, the very nature of change highlights the pros and cons of all of our operations. Once again, we just have to pay attention to this aspect for us to be able to see the value of examining ourselves in this way. Once we do, transitions shift from being frightening to being an exciting and limitless exploration of our never-ending transformations of growth and development.

These benefits don’t make any of us perfect. Transitions and transformations are a strong and constant reminder that we will always be works in progress. And, that is what the transitions in our life are meant to be – reminders of the regular and intentional work we need to put into our own growth and progress. They serve to affirm our previous growth, while simultaneously acknowledging the paths that lay ahead of us.

Originally published on my website on August 7, 2019