In recent months I have been focusing my posts on the process of transitioning from the world of work into a happy and fulfilling retirement--making your next chapter your best chapter. Last week a friend and former client asked me an interesting question: “Can you apply the principles/chapters of transitioning into retirement to any life/career transition?” And the answer is a whole-hearted YES!!
Over the years I have been a coaching partner with many people who were not happy in their current work situation. Here are some of the causes of this discontent:
Any of these factors can influence your daily sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, impacting your mental, emotional, and physical health and causing you to feel stuck. Depending on where you are in your career trajectory, your home and family situation, or financial status, you may feel you need to just gut it out for a few more years (or the long haul). You are in the proverbial box and unable to think outside it. And if you are suffering from depression or despair associated with a sense of hopelessness and helplessness, you may not have the mental energy to even think creatively about how to forge a new path toward change.
StaffSquared, a respected HR software company, references a well-known Gallup Poll in a blog post citing their research findings that 85% of US workers are not engaged at work and lists the reasons why it is so difficult to make a move. And yes, there is no doubt about it, a major career change is never easy.
Here are three “gut-check” questions:
Of course, this is a question only you can answer. Fear of the unknown, low risk tolerance, an extremely high level of responsibility for others, seniority you have earned and don’t want to lose, and lack of self-confidence can derail any thoughts of creating a Plan B.
There are many resources available for how to make life-altering decisions. In his excellent HBR article, The Right Way to Make a Career Transition, Utarsh Amitkabh says you should ask yourself three questions:
He tells an interesting story about how Jeff Bezos made the decision to leave his very successful career as an investment advisor using his “regret minimization framework,” in which he imagined himself at 80 and asked himself if he would regret not becoming an online bookseller more or playing it safe and remaining in his current career.
The author also describes how he made the decision to leave Microsoft to found his very successful Network Capital, a global peer-to-peer networking community of 100,000+ ambitious and curious millennials.
“Eventually, how you spend your time is who you become.”
-Utarsh Amitkab 
For our purposes here, let’s imagine you have made your decision and are willing to venture into the world of possibility, imagining a new and more rewarding future for yourself, building your regret-free life. The five chapters of my proprietary Best Chapter Coaching process can provide the way forward. I will note them briefly here and refer you to my previous blog posts for the detail for each one, starting with the overview post, “Instead of Retirement, How About Rewirement.”
Chapter One: Mine the Past
In this essential chapter, you will do a careful review of where and who you have been in the past and what has worked well and not worked as well for you. The purpose of this chapter is to help you decide what you want to leave behind, including outworn identities that no longer serve you, limiting beliefs and fears, and habits that have hampered your success. And to make some choices about what you want to bring with you into your desired future, e.g., your significant strengths and gifts, positive mental models, beliefs, and habits. definition of success, significant accomplishments, perceived failures, identity, and sources of meaning and purpose.
Click Here to Read More.
Chapter Two: Assess the Present
In order to get you where you want to go, your internal GPS has to know exactly where you are now. Unfortunately for many of us, we can’t see our own current reality accurately. We all have blind spots. In this chapter it is very helpful to have a mentor, coach, or trusted advisor to help us conduct an honest and thorough assessment of current reality: the level of satisfaction with all areas of our lives as well as enlivening activities, areas of struggle/suffering, our zone of genius, core values, and life purpose.
Click Here to Read More.
Chapter Three: Chart the Course
Sticking with the GPS analogy, can you remember in the early days of using satellite navigation using a Garvin device to find your way around? If you’re like me, you found yourself in an unfamiliar city, late for an important meeting, lost somewhere in a residential neighborhood hearing, “make a legal u turn,” over and over again. The fact that we can now go almost anywhere in the world and rely on directions sourced by a global satellite network on our smart phones is truly astonishing! Realtime data about where we are in relation to our destination enables us to navigate from point A to point B without struggle or delays.
So, in chapter 3, the next essential and arguably most difficult step is having a clear picture of where you want to be three years, five years, even ten years from now. It is being crystal clear about your heart’s desires and creating a reliable road map for getting there. Click Here to Read More.
Chapter Four: Neutralize the Barriers
As with any journey you take, there are bound to be barriers along the way. Your ability to anticipate them and have the ability to neutralize them without being derailed can make or break the success of your journey. And, of course, most of the blocks and barriers we encounter are internal; our limiting beliefs, mental models, previous negative experiences, and fears.
Neural reprogramming, now made possible by leaps and bounds in the field of neuroscience, is the game changer for this process. The ability to form new neural pathways in our brains enables anyone to neutralize fears and re-frame limiting beliefs, facilitating rapid change that is permanent. Click Here to Read More.
Chapter Five: Live Your Best Life
Now you’ve made the decision and you are on the path to having a career or business of meaning and purpose, having shed your old identity and neutralized limiting beliefs and fears that were keeping you stuck. Are we there yet!? Maybe yes, maybe not.
“Wherever you go, there you are.”
Thomas Russell 
If you have been unhappy in your last three jobs, changing careers again may bring you closer to living your best chapter yet. And, if so, break out the champagne and celebrate!! Woo Hoo!! If, however, you start to see old familiar patterns and experiences show up, it is a good idea to muster the courage to take a hard look in the mirror and examine the source of your discontent. Again, a trusted friend, counselor, or coach may be instrumental in helping you discover the underlying/internal causes of your ongoing dissatisfaction that may or may not be related to your career. I encourage you to do whatever it takes to make your next chapter your best chapter!!
Click Here to Read More. 
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