So, what do you do now?

You’re an oddity.?

You've had a long career in the corporate world and have traveled extensively for work but you’ve spent your whole life and career living only miles from where you and your wife were raised. You’re entrenched in your community, have deep friendships and family ties.

But, now, you’ve hugged that porcupine, made yourself uncomfortable and accepted a job 1,000 miles away from everything and everyone that has made your life so rewarding.?What do you do??How do you make the transition??How do you create a new you while still being the old you?

This was me for a 2 year period from 2021-2023, and it's me again now (but only 200 hundred miles this time).

With my Florida gig, I was able to keep my home in Pennsylvania while setting-up a new reality elsewhere for 75% of the year.?It gave me the opportunity to get home every 7-10 days while allowing my wife to get away to visit me, but it left plenty of time for me to be alone with my thoughts, fears, worries and concerns about whether I made the right decision. With my new role, it's a lot closer (a 3-hour drive) but with similar issues.

If you’re facing a career move that takes you away from what you’ve known personally, professionally and geographically, consider doing some (or all) of these things:

• Visualize the new reality. Anticipate and plan ahead to make the transition easier.
• Re-create: ?Replicate the life and work practices and behaviors that have proven productive and successful for you in the past.
• Limit Expectations: Don't expect others in your new locale to adapt to you; some will , some won't. You're on your own; be resilient.
• Create: Process, absorb and adopt new routines at work and your new home that can help you stretch your limits and solidify your success.
• Fill: Maximize your weekend schedules, learn your new surroundings. Don’t lament what you’re missing at home; discover new things where you are.
• Embrace:?Join the local chapter of your alumni association, find your new favorite restaurant, pub, local park, neighborhood diversion. ?
• Connect: Facetime friends back home, commit to calling friends on your drive home, bridge the geographic divide by purposely pulling friends and family closer.

These days, more and more people are facing hybrid roles, faced with possibility of upending what they know to work in a role that presents here-and-there scenarios.

It won't be immediately easy to adapt, but you'll get into a rhythm, find a good work/life balance and find normalcy and success sooner than you may think.