Learning to Navigate Life Transitions

Allison Osmer, Masters Level Clinician

Life transitions are periods of change in our lives that mark the beginning or the end of a stage or season of life. These transitions can be both planned and unplanned and range from personal choices to circumstances outside our control. 

Examples may involve a career shift, relocation, relationship changes, identity transformations, educational pursuits, moving into a new life stage, and so many others.

Life transitions can often bring about emotional and practical adjustments as we navigate the challenges and opportunities associated with the change.

What Makes Life Transitions So Hard?

Even though we may know change is a part of life, it doesn’t make the transition any easier. Part of the reason change can be so stressful is because it comes with a lot of uncertainty about the future. What will this next chapter look like? What challenges will I face? What don’t I know about this next chapter? Answering all these questions can feel like a daunting task, especially when we can’t possibly know all the answers about the future. 

Another reason why life transitions are hard is because as humans, we prefer predictability and stability, and life transitions can involve unpredictability and instability, even when they are planned. 

However, attempting to resist or avoid change will only lead to more stress and anxiety. Accepting change as a part of life and learning to navigate it can empower us to confront life’s transitions with resilience and strength. 

Coping with Life Transitions 

We may rationally understand that transitions are a part of life, but still find ourselves having difficulties navigating the emotional aspects of change. The following are some ways that can be helpful in coping and processing the life transition.  

Validate Your Emotions

Validate emotions about change and avoid dismissing or avoiding them. It is natural to feel a spectrum of emotions when we are facing a life transitions, including fear, anxiety, sadness, and also, excitement, optimism, and hope. 

Focus on What You Can Control 

When facing uncertainty about the future, it can be helpful to identify what you can control and what you cannot. Once you identify what you can control, focus your energy on those things. This can help you feel a sense of agency when facing the unknown. 

Recognize Your Strengths

Reflect on times you successfully navigated a life transition in the past, such as starting a new school, new job, etc. Remember your strengths during that time and how you managed to cope through the moments of uncertainty. You most likely have those same strengths now, and can utilize them for navigating present changes. 

Celebrate the Positives 

Change is not an inherently good or bad thing, however, as with anything in life, there are positives and drawbacks to life transitions. Celebrating the positives of life transitions can be a helpful way to turn fear about the future into excitement, optimism, and hope. Additionally, life transitions can be an opportunity to learn new things about yourself, the world, and others around you. 

Mourn What is Lost 

To avoid seeing change through rose colored glasses, it can be helpful to also acknowledge and process the less exciting aspects of change. With life transitions can come the sense of losing something. It may be losing a job and replacing it with a new one, losing an identity, but acquiring a new one, or moving to a new city, but losing connections you had in your old location. While these changes can be exciting, bring growth and new challenges, it’s also ok to feel sad and mourn what you are losing.  

Seek Support 

Lastly, discussing your feelings about change with a trusted friend or therapist can normalize emotions around change and help us to feel less lonely in our experience. 

If you need support, our therapists and masters level clinicians have openings for online therapy in Chicago and Illinois and virtual mental health coaching nationally and internationally. Reach out to learn more!

What It All Means  

Throughout our lives, we will constantly be facing the endings and beginnings of life transitions. Although these changes can bring fear and anxiety about the future, they can also be sources of excitement and opportunities for growth and learning. We cannot predict with certainty what life will bring us, but we can lean on our ability to cope, adapt, and process things as they come to us.