Life Transitions & How to Handle Them 

Life transitions can be some of the most difficult experiences people cope with. We are hard-wired to avoid change, because our brains perceive big changes as scary, anxiety-inducing and worrisome.  

The problem is, just as nothing bad happens without change, nothing good can come without change, either. Every new career path, romance, financial opportunity or friendship starts by being open to change — which means getting good at life transitions is an important life skill.

So, how do you do it? Here’s a quick five-step process to getting better at coping and dealing with change. 

How to deal with life transitions 

1. When it comes to big changes, start by understanding your expectations 

If you think about it, many big life transitions start before they actually start. What do I mean by that? Think about it: before you even make a change, you start by anticipating the change. You have a thought about the grief, or the coping, that you’ll have to do when change inevitably comes to pass. That thought forms an expectation, creating a kind of “inner despondency,” because you have an expectation about the event before the event has actually happened.   

Imagine you’re about to quit your job for a new career. Before you’re even done with your old job, you’re thinking about how scary your new job might be, how you won’t have any friends at your new workplace, and how you may not like the work as much as what you’re doing right now.

That’s all before you’ve even seen what the new job is like! But that’s not all… 

2. Even good changes create expectations 

Even when an upcoming change looks “good” on paper, it’s hard not to worry. When dealing with positive change — like, say, moving in with a partner — you’re probably excited about how great things will go. But there’s probably still that little nagging thought in your mind that goes, “What if we break up?” “What if things don’t work out?”

So, no matter what kind of change happens in your life, you’re probably used to questioning it… even just a little bit. The trick is to learn to stop anticipating change in a negative context, and instead, start anticipating change by thinking of all the ways that things could go right. 

3. Coping with life transitions starts by reflecting on what went right 

Think about past big life changes that have shaped where you’re at today. I want you to go a little further now: start thinking of how you handled those transitions. 

Did they go well? Some of them probably did. All of us have had that moment of reflection where something that seemed like a gigantic deal in the past was, in reality, pretty insignificant (“I thought losing my phone was going to set me back permanently… but getting a replacement was pretty easy, and all my photos were backed up”). 

Take this time now to remind yourself of those situations. You’ve handled some stuff that seemed really hard before, didn’t you? Chances are, when it comes to dealing with this next life transition, it might be just as straightforward as the last change you made. 

You might be wondering: “But what about the life changes I didn’t handle well? What about the ones that were really hard?” Well, don’t worry. I’ve got you covered on that, too. 

4. Take what you’ve learned from previous difficult big changes 

Even if you haven’t handled some changes well, that doesn’t mean they weren’t worthwhile. In fact, thinking about what made past life transitions tough can help you prepare for future big changes in new ways. 

For example, maybe you moved into an apartment with your ex, and things went downhill fast. Neither of you communicated well, and the household chores took a toll on you. Eventually, living together created a rift, and it led to the end of your relationship. 

What can you take from this? Well, to start, you can think of what you didn’t do right in the past. If you didn’t clearly communicate, now you know that communication is key to making a live-in partnership work. Making a list of chores both of you can split up — before you live together — is just one way to tackle some of the communication aspects of sharing a space with someone. 

While the lessons people take from changes that didn’t go well vary, everyone does learn lessons from tough life transitions. If you’re prepping for a big life change, think about what didn’t go so well during previous similar transitions, and account for that in your next steps. 

5. Leverage your resources 

Sometimes, you don’t get to prepare for a big life event. Sometimes, bad things (or good things) just happen. They radically reinvent your life, and there’s no way to anticipate them. In those cases, you’ve got to rely on two very important things:

• Your belief in your ability to handle hard things (this is called your capacity)… and: 
• Your ability to tap into your network of resources (people, information and capital)

How do you do that, you ask? Take a listen to my podcast episode on dealing with major life transitions to find out more. 

It’s Not Goodbye, It’s See You Later

This episode is a little bit of a sad one because it will be Ferne’s last episode as my co-host. My little girl (who’s not so little) is growing up. She’ll need this time to focus on her PhD and head to the tropics for fieldwork. In this last episode together, we talk about transitions. We talk about moving from one phase of life to another: a new job, a different town, time without a partner, no longer being on a podcast. Why do life changes always feel so hard? And how do we make them just a little bit easier?