The call came on a Wednesday.
My father had entered hospice care. What had been a gradual decline became, in that moment, something immediate and real. I hung up the phone and sat with the knowledge that the ground had just shifted and that life would look different on the other side of this.
I’m not unusual in this. Most of us, if we live long enough, will experience a season when the familiar disappears and we’re left standing in the middle of a transition we didn’t choose. A job loss. A health diagnosis. A relationship that ends. A role — parent, caregiver, spouse — that suddenly changes shape.
And sometimes, even transitions we do choose feel this way. A career pivot. Moving to a new city. Stepping away from a path you’ve been on for decades to try something entirely new.
In any of these moments, the question isn’t whether the ground will shift. It’s what you do when it does.
Start With What Doesn’t Change #
The most reliable anchor in any transition is your own sense of who you are.
Not your title. Not your role. Not the context that just changed. The things underneath that: your values, your strengths, the way you show up when things are hard.
One of the most useful things you can do before or during a transition is to get clear on those things — to put them into words you can return to. Ask yourself: What do I know to be true about myself that isn’t going anywhere? Write it down. Because when the context shifts, that list becomes a lifeline.
I’ve worked with professionals navigating significant career transitions who found that the act of naming their strengths — not aspirationally, but factually, based on actual evidence — changed how they held the uncertainty.
They weren’t starting over. They were carrying forward. There’s a real difference.
Keep Your Strengths at the Front #
Transitions tend to trigger a kind of amnesia. Suddenly, all the evidence of what you’re capable of seems far away, and the uncertainty of the new situation feels very close.
This is normal. It’s also something you can work against.
Make a list of what you’re genuinely good at. Not what you think you should be good at — what you actually are. The skills that show up reliably. The things people come to you for. The work that energizes rather than drains you.
Then ask: Where do these strengths apply in the situation I’m facing? Almost always, they apply somewhere. The context has changed; you haven’t.
Know Your Value — and Trust It #
One of the quieter fears underneath major transitions is the worry that we won’t measure up in whatever comes next. That the value we had in the previous chapter won’t transfer.
It almost always does.
The skills you’ve built, the relationships you’ve cultivated, the judgment that comes from years of navigating real complexity — these are portable. They travel with you. They show up in new contexts in ways you can’t always predict in advance.
This doesn’t mean every transition is smooth, or that nothing has to be relearned. It means you’re not starting from zero. You’re starting from somewhere, even if the destination isn’t yet clear.
Let Your Past Remind You What You’re Capable Of #
When the ground shifts, we forget what we’ve already survived.
It’s worth remembering.
Think about a time you faced something genuinely hard and found your way through it. Not because the path was obvious, but because you kept going. You adapted. You figured it out.
That capacity is still there. The transition you’re in right now is hard b,ut you have a track record of navigating hard things. You are not as unprepared as uncertainty makes you feel.
Lean on the People Who Know You #
Some of the most useful moments I’ve had during difficult seasons came from conversations with people who knew me well enough to say: I see something in you that you’re not seeing right now.
There is real value in having a trusted circle: people who can speak honestly, ask good questions, and remind you of what you know to be true about yourself when you can’t quite access it on your own.
If you don’t have that circle already, building it is one of the most practical things you can do before the ground shifts. And if you’re already in the middle of a transition, it’s not too late. Who in your life can hold this with you?
Build your circle before the ground shifts. And if you’re already in the middle of it, it’s not too late.
Keep the Long Game in Mind #
In the middle of a transition, it’s easy to overweight the immediate discomfort and underweight what you’re actually building toward.
When my father entered hospice, the weeks that followed were hard. But I also knew that being present for that season — even when it required restructuring work, letting some things go, showing up in ways that were costly — was something I would never regret. The long game was clear, even when the days weren’t.
Your transition has a long game too. Not just getting through it, but who you’re becoming in the process. What you’re building. What you’ll be able to say, on the other side, that you did.
Hold that. Especially on the hard days.
Focus on What You Can Control #
One of the most grounding things you can do in a transition is to draw a clean line between what’s in your control and what isn’t, and then put your energy almost entirely on the former.
You can’t control the timing of a layoff or the progress of an illness. You can control how you show up, what you prepare, who you reach out to, and what you do today.
That’s not a small thing. The difference between people who move through transitions well and people who get stuck in them often comes down to this: the ones who move focus relentlessly on what they can do, rather than what they can’t.
Be Willing to Bridge the Gap #
Sometimes doing what it takes to keep moving forward doesn’t look glamorous.
When I needed to keep income coming in during a difficult career transition, I took work that wasn’t exactly what I’d been doing — some writing, some consulting, some things that didn’t fit neatly into my identity at the time. A friend navigating a similar season picked up cabinet-making work, wrote SEO copy, did lawn care. Not because these were the destination, but because they kept things moving while he found his way there.
There’s no shame in the bridge. The bridge is how you get from where you are to where you’re going. What matters is that you keep moving — and that you stay clear on the direction, even when the current step doesn’t look like the destination.
You Are Not Defined by the Transition #
The hardest thing about a major life transition is the way it can temporarily obscure your sense of who you are. The title changes or disappears. The role shifts. The context that gave your days shape is suddenly gone.
But you are not your context. You are not your title or your role or your current chapter.
You are the person who has navigated hard things before. Who has skills that travel with you. Who has values that don’t depend on external circumstances to be true.
The ground has shifted. You’re still standing on it. And the next chapter, even if you can’t quite see it yet, is being built from everything you’ve already become.
If you’re navigating a transition and want to get clear on your values and what you actually want on the other side, Your Values, Your Season is a good place to start.