Becoming a "Former" Unexpectedly
A timely, wave top discussion of transformational life events
Author’s Note: Politics fall outside the scope of this newsletter and the following article refers to transformative situations from career-ending injuries experienced by elite athletes to the business, government, and academic sectors where unexpected layoffs or terminations occur. The newsletter is intended for high performers who will always be looking for how to handle situations they face and, as human beings, may sometimes grapple with personal elements but always keeps going.
“When life throws you a curve ball…” You’ve heard the phrase. We all understand it. But, when you’re personally confronted with a dramatic, career-altering situation, the reality can be much more challenging to process than a proverbial concept. When the unexpected happens – injury, firing, accident, ultimatum, etc. – any unplanned scenario that will dramatically change your life as you know it, you may feel in your heart and head that it isn’t fair and ask, “Why me?” You’re justified in feeling those things because you’re human. Nonetheless, you have to consider what it will take to move forward and, as a high performer, you are more equipped than most to do this.
Excellence has many hallmarks that have enabled you to be one of the best up to this point. Trust in knowing that you still have all those traits and skills that have led to a certain level in your career and life.
Four Elite Skills You Need to Apply Now
?1.? Adaptability: The ability to figure things out is critical. It has gotten you where you are as an elite professional in your given field, whether it’s athletics, business, or government, and it will carry you forward.
2.? Resilience: You’ve been through tough times, faced hardships, overcome challenges. This life-changing, potentially career-ending event, whatever it is, may feel like your biggest to date and you can weather it.
3.??Connection: Not to be confused with connections (plural), although those will come in helpful too! No person is an island. Talk to someone. People who have already been through what you're experiencing can be super insightful and helpful. If you are a person of faith, lean on that, too.
4.??Courage: It’s normal to feel fear in the face of uncertainty. Keep bravely putting one foot in front of the other. You’ve done hard things before.
Before you focus on the direction of where you’re headed, you may be swirling in place, grappling with what’s happened – maybe even still not sure what is going to happen. Our brains are designed to protect us and immediately go to work trying to find the answers we need. Will I need surgery? How long will my recovery be? Will I be 100% again? Will I have a job a month from now? Will I be let go tomorrow? How will I pay the mortgage? How will I pay my kid’s college tuition? Why did this happen? How can they do this? All entirely reasonable.
As I write this, I think of multiple personal examples including when I had to leave the playing field and go to the emergency room due to injury during an NCAA Final Four game. I didn’t get to finish or even watch what was ultimately the last game of my collegiate athletics career despite having a year of eligibility left. There was grief when I left the field, and again when I realized I’d never put on the jersey again. I remember, too, making the choice to retire from my first career earlier than expected. The organization and I had given so much to each other, but the relationship and organization had changed in ways I couldn’t control. I could only control my response. While there is nothing more uncomfortable than uncertainty, I bet on myself and made a tough choice.
My body could stand the crutches, but my mind couldn’t stand the sideline. ?~ Michael Jordan
When you experience such a massive life transition through an unexpected event, you will feel grief, in all its stages, in no particular order, the days, weeks, months after. You’ve probably heard that grief isn’t linear, and we each experience it in our own way. When it comes, it’s healthier to allow it than to ignore it. As you move forward, you may be caught off guard by moments of grief due to internal processing of loss, anger, disappointment, etc.
Particularly as a high performer, potentially having been part of an elite group, team, or organization, you have given your heart and soul – and certainly a lot of your time and life – to becoming the best. When that’s unexpectedly ripped away, you experience multi-layered loss.
These are just some of the types of loss you may encounter and how they might show up.
Here’s the thing…and this is really important to remember in navigating transitions…if your career as a [fill in the blank] was something you cared about, enjoyed, loved, you were going to miss it when it ended, no matter why or how it happened. We only miss things and people we care about. It may hurt more because of contextual details, and your lack of control, but there’s no amount of “planning” for emotions that come with situations such as injury, retirement, kids going to college, or the death of a loved one.
All the advance reasoning in the world doesn’t carry the day when you realize life will never be the same. It can be awesome again, but it will most certainly be different.
So, how do you move forward? To be clear, I’m not a therapist or clinically licensed mental health professional, but I’m a human & multi-disciplinary coach who has experienced many massive transitions. And I’m still alive, so there are more in store. Perhaps you’ll need to talk to a licensed professional clinician. Maybe you’ll just want a coach, or be content to talk it through with people you’re close to. As a high performer, I know that you have similar traits and hopefully skills as I do and/or the determination and resourcefulness to seek them out.
How to Move Forward from an Identity+Performance Perspective
Response – Give thought to whether you want to say, write, and do what immediately comes to mind. How do you want to show up in the face of what’s happened? Vs. How are you feeling?
Attitude / Gratitude – What is your outlook going forward? You do have a choice in this. Be sure to feel gratitude for the experiences you’ve had.
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Grace / Release – Extend it to yourself. It’s normal to feel many emotions. Allow them. Cry if you need to. Identify a positive outlet such as exercise, nature, creativity, etc.
Connection – With yourself and others. Fight any urge to retreat within yourself. Stay in contact with family, friends, and former teammates or colleagues directly and through alumni associations for support.
How can you apply your high-performance traits and skills in a different way?
How can you give back to the field you’ve dedicated your time and energy to?
Ask yourself what you want for your future in the new environment. We often seek to stay in the same field, but others make a shift completely. There are opportunities in store for you that you haven’t even imagined.
Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve. ~ JK Rowling
Two simple approaches to set yourself up for success in navigating such shifts when the time comes, particularly if you haven't yet faced a shift of this magnitude.
Self – While being an elite athlete or other professional can take essentially all your waking hours, stay in touch with who you are separate from your role.
Community – Maintain relationships with people you care about outside of your profession, sports, business such as family, friends and neighbors.
For simple ways to do these things with a cumulative effect over time, along with other tips & insight, sign up for free supplemental resources and challenges below.
*All quotes not attributed to someone else are my own. Feel free to use them with appropriate attribution.
Additional Resources
Coaching Recommendations: Please feel free to reach out for coach recommendations in the performance, career, and/or executive realms.
Many articles on related elements of this topic are somewhat negative as their goal is to educate people that there is the potential for a downward spiral - or they are super short, not very fleshed out lists. I'm not including those here as we're focused on acknowledging the loss fully and moving forward intentionally. But, others are out there if you search for them. These are a couple of potentially helpful additions.
Making Sense of the Future After Losing a Job You Love by Sally Maitlis; Harvard Business Review (30 April 2020, Career Transitions). https://hbr.org/2020/04/making-sense-of-the-future-after-losing-a-job-you-love
How to Reimagine the Second Half of Your Career by Jeff Gothelf; Harvard Business Review (18 August 2020, Career Planning). https://hbr.org/2020/08/how-to-reimagine-the-second-half-of-your-career (includes a potentially useful five minute video)
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Senior Director, Transactions & Technical Accounting @ Dow Jones | CPA
2 周Excellent article Holly! Some great points to reflect on especially as the pace of change is accelerating. AI will likely impact the workforce more than most people expect in the coming years.
Training and mission prep
2 周Excellent, thank you Holly! You briefly touch on gratitude for the experience(s) as part of the healing and recovery process from the grief of losing a position, career, etc. I’d love to reiterate the importance of thankfulness in the process of healing, from any injury or loss. Gratitude with humility is so key to healing (all kinds), recovery and maximizing the lessons learned from the trials of life. A thankful heart and mind lend themselves much more easily to finding the opportunities in obstacles and ensuring a constructive and stable response to them. Ingratitude is instability and prone to over-reaction out of anger/resentment or under-reaction out of fear… two side sides of the same coin. No matter the degree of loss, we will not fully experience it without gratitude. No matter how big the win, we will never experience its fullness without gratitude! Thank you for sharing your personal and professional insights into professional identity and holistic/truthful approach to identity in general. Further discussion in our local and professional communities is much needed! SF..DOL…