How to Navigate Transitions to Improve Your Quality of Life

When I started my career as a real estate broker over 16 years ago, I thought the job was about sales.

I was wrong.

Shortly after starting in the business, I realized that my role was really as a “coach for people in transition who need to move.”

At the core of my work with clients were the things that most people would associate with coaching. I helped my clients:

• identify their core values and driving motivations
• get clear on their wants vs needs
• set goals aligned with their values
• create strategies to get what they wanted
• create awareness about beliefs and thoughts that interfered with taking action
• navigate resistance
• manage the stress and overwhelm that often accompanies the process

The Macro Transitions of Life

Moving is generally at the top of most lists of life stressors. In addition to the heavy financial weight of the real estate transition, the process of buying or selling a home creates a period of transition: a letting go of one thing to attain the next thing and stepping into the void between them.

That transition is often a huge chasm for people to cross, but it’s generally not the only one. In most cases, the decision to buy or sell a home is catalyzed by a big life moment:

• moving in with someone
• marriage
• divorce
• family expansion
• death
• kids moving out
• career change
• financial challenges
• health issues

All of these, too, are big transitions.

This is why I began to describe my role as “a coach for people in transition who need to move.”

Eventually, I dropped the “need to move” part.

Even as a productivity coach, my work with clients often focuses on transitions – both the big ones and the smaller ones.

The Micro Transitions of Life: Daily Transitions

Some say that our entire lives are one big transition between the moment we are born and the moment we die.

Within that big transition that defines our lives, we experience a series of other transitions. The big life transitions described above are the most obvious.

Less obvious are the smaller transitions we encounter in our daily experience:

• between waking up and starting your day.
• from your home to the activities of your day.
• between tasks, activities, and events throughout your day.
• returning home from the activities of your day.
• between the end of your day and going to sleep.

Transitions are an unescapable fact of life.

How you navigate these transitions determines the quality of your day. The quality of your days determines the quality of your life.

Therefore, how you navigate transitions — both the big and small ones — determines the quality of your life.

A Lesson on Transitions from The CrossFit Open

This lesson was evident in my recent experience in the CrossFit Open.

As I wrote previously, eliminating or cutting down on my transition times within each workout was a crucial factor that helped me cut my time or get more reps within the allotted time.

When you’re looking to find time in your day, the transitions are often a hidden source of extra time.

That said, I also realized in these workouts that I couldn’t completely eliminate the transitions — nor would I want to.

There were some transitions that might seem long when I look at the numbers, but in the context of the workout, they actually gave me time.

A slightly longer transition before a set of burpees in 24.1 gave me a second wind.

Extra breaths before each set of jump rope singles in 24.2 allowed me to center myself and do the jump rope set unbroken.

Breaking up the early barbell thrusters in 24.3 helped me preserve my energy for the jumping chest-to-bar pull-ups and the heavier thrusters that came later.

The key in each case was to be strategic and intentional about the transitions: to structure them and navigate them in a way that would allow me to restore my energy and give me a boost for the movement that came next.

Navigating the Transitions of Your Day

The same principle applies in navigating the transitions of our days.

Just like in a workout, it’s unrealistic to expect that we can eliminate all transitions. The key is to use transitions effectively and strategically to restore energy for what comes next.

After finishing a session of cognitive work, it helps to take a break. Just like a muscle needs to recover after a heavy lift, the brain also needs to recover after an intense session of focus.

That’s an ideal time to change your environment.

Rather than schedule meetings back-to-back with no break, I like to schedule some buffer time to reset.

Just like in a workout, when we don’t plan strategic transitions, fatigue builds up and we end up taking unintentional longer transitions to recover.

Schedule Effective Transitions

Look at the activities of your day and notice where you can take transitions between different types of activities that will help you reset and recharge for what comes next.

Find small activities that might fit well in those transitions that will boost your energy, and give the “active muscle” a break.