What can you do when your story breaks down?

In my career coaching work I often meet people who are concerned about their approach towards the degree of uncertainty along their journey. They often have doubts and fears about whether they will be able to be resilient and ultimately achieve what is important to them.

Change creates uncertainty and depending on our subjective perception and what is going on in our lives, we can experience unhelpful psychological and behavioural responses. Often a major change in our careers is accompanied by other degrees of disruption in our lives (my personal career transition journey was anticipated by health issues and a fundamental shift in the direction of my life).

Bruce Feiler, the author of Life is in the Transitions, defines these disruptive phases in our lives "lifequakes", because their force is so strong that it involves a significant shift in the meaning and purpose of our lives. Lifequakes are a forceful burst of change in our lives that lead to a period of upheaval, transition and renewal. He also reminds us that a lifequake can be voluntary (switching jobs, changing religions, having an affair, etc.); involuntary (being made redundant, our house burning down, our spouse having an affair, etc.); personal (leaving or rejecting a stable condition, whether a career, family, worldview or home, etc.); collective (the Great Recession, Brexit, #MeToo, etc.).

Experiencing a mix of different states of mind while we navigate these phases come as no surprise. We feel we have reached a place in our lives where we no longer feel we have an identity, we no longer know how to tell our story. Most of us experience the transition to a new working life as a time of confusion, loss, insecurity and uncertainty. As Herminia Ibarra points out in Working Identity, creating and telling stories of our identity, resonates and helps us to believe in ourselves. Very often a transition means we are unsure of who we are anymore, since so much has changed. A clear narrative line - the series of our choices and actions together - provides a framework with which we can explain who we are, where we are coming from, and where we are heading to. When our stories break down, we feel we no longer have a fundamental structure to help us ground ourselves and relate to others, and more importantly, to ourselves.

How can we navigate transitions when our story is up in the air? What can we do to deactivate or turn down our survival mode given that our brain is a meaning-making machine?

A helpful way to start is to consider how we define our identity. Is it about a perceived role in life - work, family, class, gender, aspirational? Is it about a description we used to give ourselves - I am strong, weak, fast, slow, beautiful, ugly, etc.?

The roles we play in our lives and the descriptions we use to make sense of who we are are very often an embodiment of our values. There are benefits and disadvantages of doing so. The benefits are that we have gained a high level of competence, which is helpful for us to know, and to convey to others. However, when a single role becomes fully embedded into our own identity, there is a potential for us to have an existential crisis should that role ever end. Clarifying our roles - and our values - provides a way for us to more comfortably transition during changes. We play a variety of roles in our lives. Each role has its own unique story. Our identity is constructed through stories. Consider the following questions:

• What has been a peak experience in your life?
• What value/values did it honour?
• What really annoys you?
• What value does that violate?
• What is it so obviously important to you that you even didn't mention it?
• What values do you believe it would be important to prioritise over others based on where you are now in life?
• What is/has been your work role? Go beyond the job title someone else has chosen for you. Break your role into sub-roles. What other aspects does/did your job include?
• What are your non-work roles?
• What roles would you like to play if you had more time?
• What could you do right now to allow yourself to play a bit of that role?
• Are there any other roles you would like to reduce or stop playing?
• How could you connect all of these roles and your values?

You could then build a vision statement that can help you gain a sense of direction. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and visualise the connection: what do you see, hear and feel? How could you remember that feeling? What does your vision statement tell you about your purpose?

A coaching model to further explore your story is the Neurological Levels which explains how your mind organises your life experiences into a generalised set of values and a complex web of beliefs. These inform your attitude, which directly affects your behaviour. The questions around your roles and values help you gain some more information at the level of values/beliefs, identity and purpose. Exploring the other levels of change can help you align your individual change with your purpose and identity. The basic idea is that each level affects those below it.

You can also use this model in terms of I (identity) Can/Can't (beliefs/values), Do (capability) That (behaviour), Here (environment). Consider these questions:

• What's your vision statement?
• How can you see change as part of your role?
• What is your purpose and how have you framed your mindset so you see the change as part of your role?
• What is your belief in yourself to make the change?
• What opportunities are there to develop new skills?
• What is preventing you from behaving differently?
• Is your current environment conducive to make the change? What else can be done to ensure your environment is ready for the change? If not, how might you remove yourself from the environment?

We humans are storytellers. Stories construct our identities. The process of identity management can be especially problematic when we are making career or life changes. The stories we tell ourselves can make us or break us. Some stories embolden us, some stories keep us stuck. Our stories help us make sense of our reality, they help us connect with others, they helps process our memories and understand where we come from, where we are and where we are going. Stories find us when we get lost in them. They can help us imagine who we would like to be and what we would like to do. We all have a version of our stories. We all have scripts - most of them might actually not be ours. Transitions can be a powerful opportunity to revisit our stories and create a new one that can feel more aligned with who we are becoming. We might even realise we are not as off track as we think we are.

#story #storytelling #careertransitions #lifetransitions #change #uncertainty #coachingtips #coachingtools