When all is Change and Changing

Transition is a bit like relationship breakup: it’s a lot easier to talk about it, than it is to experience and live through it. There are other similarities, too: feelings of loss, uncertainty about the future, moments of self-reproach interspersed with—if we are lucky—occasional moments of joy and exhilaration.?

This article is about a key anchor during times of change: your relationship with yourself. If this is firmly rooted in self-worth—rather than in the shifting sands of self-esteem—then you can go through whatever is necessary with more confidence, determination and joy.?

Types of Transition

First, let’s note that everyone’s experience of transition is different. Faced with redundancy, a 30+- manager who was actively planning self-employment will experience this differently to a 50+ colleague who was counting on staying with the company until retirement.? But if the latter has amassed a considerable investment/property portfolio, they may well be less worried about finances and more worried about the loss of daily interaction with colleagues. No two people have the same experience of change.

Furthermore, we cannot just consider work-related transitions in isolation. Alongside, you might be:

• Moving country, whether as professional or partner of the person moving
• Experiencing relationship change, often bringing with it a lifestyle change
• Downsizing, upsizing, moving from city life to country life etc
• Parenting and all the changes this brings, as well as the changes that occur when kids go to school and later, to university
• Shifting from employee to independent freelancer (or vice versa)
• Managing finances for the first time (or learning to delegate that)
• Moving from being a commitment-free nomad to having a mortgage, or maybe the other way around!
• Taking a more public stance (or role) on social or political issues, hence having to consider your leisure or online activities from a new angle
• Death of a loved one or family member, which often triggers many of the transitions above
• War / conflict: an estimated 90 million people are currently undergoing an entire set of life-changes that most of them never planned for or wanted.

Transitions often occur together. When a student goes to college, they are not only learning to navigate the new world of university, but also to manage a budget, deal with relationship / sexuality issues and new a relationship with their parents.? If you follow your partner to another country, you will probably need to learn a new language, deal with different social customs, master a mountain of administration, find a new job, and deal with feelings of loss for things you miss about home. It’s quite rare than transitions are “single crossings” from A to B: there are usually multiple shifts happening at once. We are in a river with multiple currents.

We also need to remember that transitions begin in quite distinct ways:

• Some are voluntary: you are making a choice about career / relationship / country and hence dealing with the responsibility of that (as well as a possible “slump” later on)
• Others are forced: such as redundancy, war, being the one that is left in relationship breakup. This brings a host of different feelings e.g. hurt, betrayal, anger etc, as well as a different effect on energy.

First Wave: Immediate Issues

The first wave of any change is usually the immediate issues that the change brings and the energy you need to deal with these.? For example, if you lost your job yesterday, today you may feel you need to start taking action on things like…

• cutting down your living costs
• rescheduling mortgage payments
• updating your CV
• making a quick decision about the direction you want to go in
• dealing with health-insurance, plus lots more.

These issues are often made all the harder because you may be feeling stressed. However, such stress is not always negative. Over the years, many clients have told me how cataclysmic events energised them, giving them the very push they needed to make decisions and take action.? In short, the first wave is not all bad!?

Q: List the external issues (not feelings) that you are grappling with now.? You might want to highlight the top 3-5.

Second wave: Feelings

When a crisis hits, many of us spring into action. It may be only afterwards that we get time to deal with our feelings and inner experience.

(There is an important exception: if you are the one initiating the change. In this case, you have probably started with feelings: e.g. those moments of dissatisfaction that prompted you to initiate the transition. In this situation, your first wave is one of feelings, but you can be sure there will be subsequent waves of feelings, too)

These feelings may be grief, anger, excitement, fear, guilt, joy, irritability, confusion, restlessness, boredom, dread and even exhilaration.? Plus many more shades in-between.?

During times of change, particularly when multiple transitions are happening together, some of those feelings may be directed against ourselves, in the form of self-reproach. This is when the problems can start because we often end up diminishing our capacity to deal with the transition(s) and do the things we need to do.?

Examples:?

• Isolating ourselves because it’s just too hard to socialise or network right now, even with friends. Substituting social media for real interaction.
• Becoming depressed, losing faith in the world / marketplace, seeing nothing but corruption and manipulation, drifting towards comfort-food, conspiracy theories, the wine bottle etc.
• Latching onto single issues, often with anger: driving people away due to our evangelical zeal. Turning social media feeds into a diatribe.
• Feeling like a fraud, doubting that we ever achieved those past successes, or dismissing them as just mere luck. Becoming despondent that we can ever achieve like that again.
• Doubting our own values, particularly if we feel we are not living up to them right now.
• Constant comparison with others, who always seem to be doing so much better.
• Feeling downtrodden by the sheer workload involved in transition: the administration, property issues, grappling with tax and registration, dealing remotely with issues “back home”, accounting, technological setup etc.
• Sense of betrayal and inadequacy when the dream seems to be turning into a nightmare.

Q: List the feelings that you are grappling with now.? Which of these feelings are about you? What self-assessments are you making about yourself?

The significance of self-worth

This is usually the time that we need to revisit our relationship with ourselves. The problem here is twofold:

1. Most people’s relationship with self is based on self-esteem, not self-worth. Self-esteem has conditions: it’s how we feel we are doing at the game of life. Self-worth comes from within, it’s not based on behaviour or performance.? (Fully explained in the book “The Self-Worth Safari”)
2. During change, the reference points that defined our self-esteem have often disappeared. Examples could be the company car, the place at the office, the big house, the job title, the golf-club, the family name, the way we dress etc). In particular, the pandemic and its aftereffects have robbed many people of their reference points.

Self-worth is one of the few things that nobody can take from you. Whether you have been rejected in love or in the corporate reshuffle, whether your migration was voluntary or forced, whether you feel you are the villain or the victim: you can still have self-worth. You can be an unconditional friend to yourself in all conditions.?

Neither does self-worth require that you have worked out your life-purpose, career-strategy or even your professional identity. You can have self-worth while sitting eating a bag of chips, in total confusion. Your self-esteem might not feel very good, but your self-worth can still be intact.?

From decades of coaching people through transition, I cannot stress this enough. No matter what is happening around you – outside or inside – you can have self-worth. In the maelstrom of transition, this is vitally important. Self-worth allows us to go through the feelings, the setbacks and the issues, while still remaining a loyal friend to ourselves.

The Hero’s Journey

Many transitions follow a classic S-shaped curve. However, that S often has multiple squiggles!? It’s interesting to note the moments in which self-worth will be significant:

1. Initial enthusiasm e.g. excitement about the new future, not being stuck in traffic every day, the thrill of seeing your new logo/website, etc. Self-worth is not so significant here; self-esteem is probably riding high!
2. Disillusionment: after a few months, that new freelance career, or country (or even partner) doesn’t seem so magical after all. The imperfections of the new world are now glaringly obvious, and we have moments of real nostalgia for the past we have left behind. This is often the time when we wonder if we’ve made the wrong decision. Now self-worth is more significant: can we be a loyal friend to ourselves, in those moments of disillusionment??
3. Salvation appears: out of nowhere, a new opportunity arises (job, contract, person, course) We are so delighted that we don’t ask too many questions. A life raft has appeared in a turbulent river and we’ve been so long in the water, we are just happy to get aboard! Self-esteem is back in the sunlight. We’ve made it!
4. The Slough of Despond: that person or company or expensive coaching program turns out to be quite different to what we expected. Sadly, this can even take the form of sexual harassment or financial exploitation, because predators are adept at finding vulnerable people in transition. This is often the lowest moment during change and re-invention and now self-worth is vitally important.? If we have that unconditional relationship with ourselves, this can now be a catalyst for:?
5. A New Identity emerges: in the words of the poet WB Yates, “all is changed, changed utterly:? a terrible beauty is born”. This is the moment when people realise the core of who they are and become quite determined about their future direction, no matter what others may be thinking about them, or what obstacles are in their way.?

Q: Where are you in your Hero’s Journey right now?? What’s the significance of self-worth for you? How can you make this deeper and more unconditional??

Getting support

Wherever you are in your transition, you don’t have to journey alone. You can find new energy and joy with the right “thinking partner”. Perhaps there are new options that could be explored, or better ways to present yourself? Is it time to confront / fire some of the committee living in your head?? Which behaviour changes could accelerate your progress? And who are you… whatever you are doing, wherever you are going??

In the words of Joseph Campbell, “The privilege of a lifetime is to be who you are”.?

Resources

• You can download the first chapter of the book: “The Self-Worth Safari” - how to clarify and deepen self-worth, particularly when going through transition.?
• Want some support from our experienced team of Self-Worth Associates ??
• Webinars on self-worth and professional identity: here

? John Niland, August 2022. For enquiries about John as coach or speaker, on topics of self-worth and professional identity, see www.selfworthacademy.com or email [email protected]?