The Sky is No Limit: Managing My Transition in Real Time

15 December 2017. Friday had arrived. I hit the “send” button on the email to my Human Resources department, notifying them of my intent to transition as a senior executive from the US Army. I did it with a mix of excitement, trepidation, and sense of finality. All of these feelings I’ve been experiencing are typical based on the hundreds of discussions, feedback moments, tips, and chats I’ve had with people over the past two years.

That’s right, I said “in the past two years.” Though I am not scheduled for actual transition until 1 August 2018, I am actually in the middle of implementing a plan I put into action two years ago. Wise friends, family, and senior mentors had encouraged me "the earlier the better" and I paid attention. It would be easy to "not think about it" or "I'll get around to it when I get closer," but time is the one asset I did have, and I wanted to make the most of it while I had more of it. I think it's paying off from what I have learned so far.

I remember thinking back then that it was a little far out to be looking toward the end of something great, and the beginning of something even greater. After all, I was at the height of a very successful career, working with fantastic people, and part of a vital organization that achieves world changing results. So why think about what’s next? Who does that? Well I do!

Because life without a plan leaves me with very limited options, and I believe the further out I plan, the more opportunities I will have at the conclusion of a successful transition. Not coincidentally, the opportunities have already begun to manifest themselves by virtue of the long term goals I began work on in 2016, so I think it's working,

It started with saying the word’s “I’m going to transition." Actually saying those words to myself and to others, started the ball rolling. Though those words describe an eventual reality for all of us, there was no decision made or commitment behind what I said. I had to describe a goal to myself and stick to it. Action proceeds words not precedes. So my mantra was “I will take 24 months to research, decide and prepare for my transition from the US Army into my next pursuit.” I wrote it down.

Making that declarative gave form to a plan and held me to a commitment to myself. It also eliminated mental fuzziness and any chance for procrastination, which are both very human responses to fear of the unknown, and I’ll admit, are often my go-to defaults. I overcome them by doing exactly what I’m writing about here: making a decision.

I wrote it down in a contract covenant with myself. This also served as the blueprint for my plan going forward. I would be lying if I told you I know what I wanted to do after transitioning. But this action was the first step. After that the mind does wonders as I began to shape the future in the context of transition.

What I found useful was that I could more easily define is what I did NOT want to do in the future. I think often times we may ignore that very powerful information. It is very important to consider this because I, we, have years of experience to leverage, and frankly, I want satisfaction and contentment where I am choosing to spend my time. Don’t you?

Think about an artist’ canvas. Most artists use the filling of the large dark spaces or the “relief” on the canvas in order to define the shape of the subject. The more relief background is filled, the more defined the central focus becomes as it almost paints itself. The problems begin when the artist tries to define details first, while not acknowledging and drawing the relief spaces. It eventually becomes difficult to scale in proportion to the whole canvas, and in fact becomes limited or distorted and not a very good picture overall.

This applies precisely to deciding what it is we want to do. We may go for the “what I want to do” details immediately, discounting the possibility that this may include many things we no longer want to do. We also don’t consider that in the finishing of one successful career, it represents many, if not all the things we originally wanted to do and be part of. Finding the same collective bang for the buck in terms of personal and professional satisfaction may be more difficult. While not impossible, it requires no less than all our attention.

What I am suggesting, and I what I have done, is to decide what I am not going to do. I have learned through plenty of experience what I enjoy doing, what I will tolerate doing, and what I am absolutely not going to do anymore as part of my next chapter. You may want to try this as well. As the result, you may find yourself in a completely unrelated and different kind of pursuit. And if you do, all you’ll need is the courage to follow your plan, because it may not look like anything you would normally think of for yourself. The worst that could happen is you end up happy.

You’ll notice whenever possible I avoided the word “retirement” in reference to my experience. For me that word implies something that is other than what I am doing now, and conjures up some old fashioned images of sitting on a front porch somewhere, growing hair out of my ears and watching my dog sleep. I don’t even own a dog. I think the better part is yet to come and I am in the middle of it all, so transition is the accurate word for me.

I’ll continue to post my experience on here because I know there are a lot of other people, valuable, smart, energetic, and committed people, who are in, or will be in soon, my same situation. To all of you I say keep at it, you’re definitely not alone, and we will make our best yet to come.