Let's see if we can make some sense of all this. Now, we've just looked at all the organizational changes through the lens of transition. And perhaps what's become obvious as you've certainly got some work to do around transition related issues for those changes. But it's also become obvious, my guess is that those aren't the only changes you've got going on in your life. So what I'd like to do is to help you to create a little bit of a map and share some ideas around staying sane in a constantly changing life. First thing I'd like you to do is to find this worksheet that we filled out a while ago now, what's changing in your life worksheet, and it's the place where you wrote down all of the changes you've got going on in your life.

Second thing I'd like you to do is to find this worksheet and this is a transition map. Where are you in transition? The graph here, of course, has the transition process in between the old world in the new world the journey of transition between those two things. What I'd like you to do is to simply position all of the changes in all aspects of your life somewhere on this map in a way that would reflect where that particular changes in transition for you right now, take a moment, push pause in this and just simply start to sketch out where you think the changes are, they may well be in one particular phase of this journey. It may be bordering across a couple phases, doesn't make any difference. Just take a moment, push, pause, and start to create your map.

Here's an example of what a map might look like. These are all of the changes that were listed in that example what's changing in your life, and they're positioned in a way of Well, there's some on all phases of this particular map. There seems to be a concentration of changes in that time in between. I'd like you to look at the spread of your changes. I'd like you to think about what would be ideal if they were concentrated in one particular area? What would be the best area?

Or would it be better to have a balance? I've learned over the years that anytime I've got a whole pile of changes in the old world separation, and this continuum, the left hand of this, I'm in for a long, challenging, sometimes somewhat depressing few months as I have to let go of a lot of things. If, as in this example, there's a number of changes in the time in between, we may feel like very little is stable right now. And if we've got a whole pile of changes over on the right hand side of this map, we may find ourselves getting impatient with those around us who might not be quite so far along. So I'm not sure that a concentration in any one area is a good idea. I like the idea of a balance, but not only a balance, I think there's also something to be said for taking this picture.

Every four to six months, and let's make sure that we're doing some things to keep these changes moving from the left side of the map to the right side of the map, so things don't get stalled. So a balance, and then a balance in motion over time, I think would be ideal. So whatever your map tells you, what do we need to do to deal with all of this? Well, here's some ideas. First of all, separate major change from noise. Let's keep things in perspective of the five or 10 or 15 or 20 changes that you perhaps have going on in your life right now.

My guess is a year from now, you wouldn't remember the majority of them, but some of them you will. So let's not get all bent out of shape around small relatively, what seems to be significant changes at the moment. But in the grand scheme of things, they're really not a big deal. So let's try to keep things in perspective. As often as possible, activate your sense of humor. find opportunities to see the absurdity in the situation around you find ways to laugh.

What's really important in all of this, especially with our organizational changes is not to become permanently professional, out of terminal professionalism is starting to happen. When someone asks us how we're doing, and our only frame of reference is work, we've become our job. Now, there's one particular generation working in organizations today, the baby boomers that seemed to fall prey to terminal professionalism, more so than any other. And I would suggest that Gen Xers would be the least likely generation to fall prey to this. We are far more than our job and to get all swept up in work is it and that's the only thing I've got going and it feels really unstable right now. Therefore, I'm very unstable.

Is not a healthy position to be in. For those big changes as we try to keep things in perspective, for the big changes, let's pay attention to the transition, the majority of changes, we won't even worry about transition, because it's so small, we will go through it and perhaps not even be aware of it. But for the big transitions, we can get stuck in these and they can be a real challenge. So using some of those ideas that we talked about, and building a transition plan, that can be very helpful as you pay attention to the big transitions on a regular basis. Do things that you like to do treat yourself on a regular basis, without adding more stress in your life, whatever it might be. It might be enjoy a really really good bottle of wine with pizza on a Friday night.

It might be take a loved one out for lunch, it might be pamper yourself and go to a spa, whatever it might be. But when we're in major transitions, it's really important to take good care of ourselves. along that same line, stay connected to the stuff that's really important matters of the heart and soul, keeping people around you that you love dearly, doing things that are really meaningful to you. There's a delightful quote I came across a number of years ago, and it was helpful at the time, something to the effect and I can't remember who's quoted is something to the effect that our anxiety doesn't come from thinking about the future rather, from wanting to control it. So if we can let the future unfold as it will unfold and stay focused on today, we are going to be a lot more relaxed. And above all else, pay attention to the basics, perhaps it's just the basics of physical wellness, input, output and rest.

So there's a few ideas around living with change these days. I hope they're helpful.