Welcome to Being in-Between: a Guide to Getting from Here to There, where I share monthly reflections on navigating Major Life Transitions. Or whatever else is on my mind.
In last month’s blog, I wrote about how to make decisions when you’re overloaded with options.
But what about when your life has completely changed and – you don’t have any ideas about how to move forwards? Sometimes all you know is that you don’t want to (or cannot) return to your old life, no matter how tempting it can be to think about returning to the safe, familiar past.
It’s normal to feel stuck when we’re shifting into the unknown, because – it’s the unknown. We cannot be aware of all the possibilities. I’m reminded of a young man whose entire family was involved in selling drugs: from a young age, it was all he knew. He decided he wanted to do something else – but had no idea where to start. What other jobs even existed? Of course, there were examples of alternative careers all around him, but he wasn’t yet able to see them. It’s the same for all of us, too, when we encounter what is unknown to us.
With incomplete information, it can be tough to know what it is that you truly desire. It’s like someone asking you what you want to order, when you don’t know what’s on the menu. The pressure is further amplified when we want to do something unique or original.
During and following major life transitions, it can help to brainstorm and generate ideas to fill the blank canvas of possibility.
Here are 8 tips for how to do this:
1. Practice Interactive Journaling
We crave the ‘ahah!’ lightbulb moment where all the uncertainty in our lives disintegrates and is replaced by a clearly discernible path forward. But that moment doesn’t appear out of nowhere: it’s the evolution of ideas. It’s like reaching the summit of a mountain of thoughts, feelings and intuition. We can’t get there without the exercise of climbing.
Interactive journaling can help us identify patterns in our thoughts: writing them down, and then rereading them later. It’s a special opportunity to engage in a conversation with ourselves, a dialogue between our past and present mind.
Charles Darwin practised interactive journaling: he rigorously maintained notebooks in which he quoted sources, drew diagrams, dismissed false leads, and let his mind roam. He was constantly rereading his notes, discovering new associations and implications. From those records, we can see how his ideas evolved toward – the theory of evolution!
This blog is also an example of interactive journaling – I’ve drawn from excerpts of my own thinking and writing over the past few years, and combined them with different articles or books that I’ve read. The old school notebook method is tried and tested, or these days we’re lucky to have a number of tools to help us (I use Evernote).
2. Get Out of The House
It’s easy to get stuck when spending a lot of time alone: your thinking remains within the confines of your old biases and habits. The same goes for limiting yourself to familiar routines, conversations, or events.
To think more innovatively, place yourself into environments that differ from those you’d normally frequent. It doesn’t have to be complex: a simple in-person group conversation is ideal. Look for opportunities to maximise the number of new connections, and for people that tend to think creatively or that come from different backgrounds to yours.
In this way, you’re likely to generate serendipity, and increase your awareness of the number of options that are possible for you.
3. Multitask Hobbies
Legendary innovators tend to have a lot of hobbies. Their slow multitasking between different activities creates a fertile environment for their minds to borrow tools from one pursuit to solve problems in another.
Perhaps there’s an exciting new career option available to you that merges your different hobbies. For example, Hannah Hart combined a passion for cooking and comedy to create the YouTube series "My Drunk Kitchen.” Felicia Day turned an interest in videogames and writing into "The Guild," a web series about a group of online gamers. Sarina Brewer fused hobbies in art, animals and funerary rituals to become a founding contributor of “taxidermy art.”
I was recently reflecting that for me, DJing combines my love of music and public speaking; and consulting brings together creative ideation with a love of telling people what I think (haha!).
4. Steal Like An Artist
Instead of trying to do something completely new, recycle old options to generate new ones.
Artists are always borrowing from one another. That’s how we get remixes like the Brazilian hit single “Bum Bum Tam Tam” by MC Fioti that samples, of all things, Bach’s Partita in A minor for flute. Borrowing is also how I came up with the subtitle for this section.
All ideas are derivatives of one another; there is no true originality. That is incredibly liberating. Maybe you can draw from someone else’s work, life path, or beliefs, and take it in a new direction by putting your own spin on it.
“Most of the time, success comes from a well-placed tweak, a novel combination of two or more existing elements, or the better version of an idea or product not yet perfected.” - Adam Alter, Anatomy of a Breakthrough: How to Get Unstuck When it Matters Most
5. Have Friends Extrapolate Your Trajectory
My inner researcher views the trajectory of our lives like a graph – some of us will have a linear curve, others most definitely won’t. But if we zoom out far enough – we might gain additional insight into where we are heading, based on where we’ve been before.
It’s often difficult for us to see the bigger picture of our own lives. That's when friends, family, or colleagues who've known us for a long time can be invaluable. Ask them to provide insights on where they see you heading and whether your current pursuits align with an authentic version of yourself. Listen to the results with curiosity and detachment; as you might do the prediction of a fortune teller.
6. Revisit Childhood Passions
Another way to learn from the past is to think back to the activities that made you happy as a child. These early passions were less tainted by societal pressures or expectations, making them excellent starting points for exploring your true interests. Embrace the creative and non-conformist spirit you had as a child.
7. Pay Attention to Jealousy
Jealousy can be a window into your deepest desires: think about it as the whisper of a deep longing inside yourself. When you feel envious of others, think about what feelings are associated with that envy. What you’re actually seeking might not be for the exact thing they have, but rather the emotional state it represents. Jealous of a friend who travels? Perhaps you crave adventure. Wealth? You might really want freedom or comfort.
Jealousy can serve as a handy emotional compass for your decision-making.
8. Be Brave
As much as we may crave creativity, we have an in-built tendency to fear it too: unconventional choices increase uncertainty, discomfort, and familiarity. We often only appreciate creative people once their ideas or concepts have gained widespread recognition. When trying to step outside of the safety of our familiar world – e.g. ‘the box’ – we need to be brave, and embrace the spirit of experimentation.
And Now For Something Completely Different…
The pressure to do something different following a major life transition can be paralysing. But actually, this is a special opportunity to engage our creativity and playfulness and generate new options for our futures that weren’t evident or possible beforehand.
As we consider our next steps, it’s important to be open-minded, courageous and patient. The process is likely to feel convoluted and slow, and may even lead to some surprising results; which is all part of the fun of life!
The risk of a successful brainstorm is coming up with too many possibilities – in which case you can refer back to my blog on managing overwhelm from having too much choice. And that is a much more empowered position to be in than facing a blank canvas.
Happy generating!
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What are Major Life Transitions? How are they different than Changes?
Transitions are not Changes. Transitions are psychological. Change is contextual.
Major Life Transitions involve a period of being in-between identities, a dark void without clarity, a state of stillness within motion. They bring us into the liminal space: the boundary between what was, and what is to come.
We know we're in a Transition when we undergo a deep, raw, often excoriating process of losing our sense of self. We question our identities. Transitions include multiple changes - to our health, career, relationships, finances, geographies, etc - but they're not synonymous with Change.
Although caterpillars can grow up to 100 times their size, move locations, and even change colours, those are still changes. But when caterpillars enter into the pupa and turn into butterflies, they’re in a Transition: a complete metamorphoses of identity.