Neutralize the Barriers (CHAPTER 4)

This article is the fifth in a series describing the process of a successful transition. If you are in the last third of your life and thinking about ending your current career or selling your successful business, but not sure what you’re going to do or how you’re going to do it, this series will guide your thinking and perhaps give you your best next step/s. If you have been reading the 4 previous posts in this series you have had a brief overview of the 5 Chapters for making your next chapter your best chapter and learned how to let go of the past, see the present clearly, and chart a course for the future. You may read the previous four posts HERE if you missed them and would like to start at the beginning.
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​In this chapter we will explore ways to neutralize the inevitable blocks and barriers that are bound to arise as you make this significant shift.

​“We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.”
                        - Joseph Campbell

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In Chapter 3, we charted a course for moving from the world of work into your best chapter yet. We know that on any journey there will be obstacles that get in the way. We will face decisions about where and how we want to live and what we want to do with our time every day. Surprisingly, these are the easier ones, and unlike an actual road trip or travel to another country, the tricky blocks and barriers are internal; they’re not ones we can actually see and  navigate around over or through as depicted in the graphic below. They are our:

• mental models about our own “enoughness,” just as we are, without a long list of accomplishments and the sense of being special that accompanies a long and successful career,
• emotions like loss, fear, uncertainty, confusion, anxiety, and even numbness,
• long standing routines and habits that are hardwired into our brains and function as our operating system, and
• relationships we are potentially losing as we leave the world of business and our personal relationships that may need to be revived or rebuilt.

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​​Chapter 4 is the stage of the journey where you are literally becoming a new human being. You have been a certain way, held fast to a certain identity, and operated from a very specific set of thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors. In this phase, many of those outmoded internal constructs will derail your journey if you cling to them. Without literally rewiring your brain, you will burden yourself with your old mental models and ways of showing up in the world. I would like to illustrate this crucial and most often ignored part of the journey by telling you a story of a hypothetical person, (let’s call her Sandy) who is a composite of the people I have guided, coached, and supported through this phase.

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​Sandy was in her mid-sixties and had spent her entire career (40+ years) excelling in the healthcare industry. As a hospital CEO for the past 15 years, she had built a reputation for her facility she was extremely proud of, loved her employees like family members, and spent every day making sure her patients received the best care possible. Sandy’s self-described identity was that of a “striver.” She had planned well and had a successor who was poised to step into her shoes. There was just one problem: she was unable to think of herself as having worth without the sense of being significant and necessary to the success of “her hospital.” While she was tired mentally and physically from the stress of years of intense striving, she was paralyzed by all the obstacles listed above.

Here is the three-step process we used for rewiring Sandy’s brain:
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1. The first step was for Sandy to write a list of all her fears associated with letting go of the past and present. We then prioritized the list, and the fear that emerged as number one was her fear that without her current level of fulfillment and sense of daily contribution she would have no sense of her own self-worth. Can you identify? With that awareness, Sandy immediately began to feel better once the source of her sense of anxiety became a specific and clear picture of the obstacle that needed to be addressed.
2. Next, we identified the “what if” thoughts that were continuously swirling in her head and waking her up in the middle of the night. “What if after six months of retirement I get depressed and wish I had stayed? What if I feel invisible and insignificant? What if I just can’t/don’t enjoy my new normal?”
3. Then we looked at the limiting beliefs that were the sources of those thoughts. Upon reflection Sandy wasn’t surprised to find that her belief, “If I am not doing something important in the world, I am nothing,” came from the question her father asked her daily upon returning from work: “What did you do today to justify your existence?” Surfacing that belief and seeing how it had fueled the thoughts and feelings that drove her, began to disempower it, as though the curtain had been pulled back by Toto to reveal the “fake” Wizard of Oz.

There’s more to the process, of course, but you can see how just getting to this point moves the hidden obstacles of emotions, thoughts, and beliefs into the conscious mind where they are no longer programs running in the background in the unconscious mind. This is how new neural pathways are formed and is what we call neuroplasticity—the brain’s ability to learn new ways of thinking, believing, acting, and doing.  

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“Our minds have the incredible capacity to alter the strength of connections among neurons, essentially rewiring them, and creating entirely new pathways.”
-Susannah Callahan     

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What happened to Sandy? The “aha” she had about her most influential limiting belief and where it came from was the catalyst for a change in perspective about what constituted her definition of worth. Do you know that feeling you have when you have an aha moment? In that instant, we can actually sense a new thought connecting with an existing map in the brain, creating a new possibility; a shift in how we view ourselves, others, and the situation. And a change in perspective can change your life! For Sandy, it did just that. 
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In time Sandy was able to say goodbye to her hospital, her beloved colleagues, and the thousands of patients for whom she had felt responsible for decades. She experienced a natural period of loss and grieving, which she honored by giving herself grace and time to rest and reach a place of peace and stability. She has granted herself a year of slowing her pace down and continuing to shift her identity from “striver” to “explorer.” Her days are spent in drawing classes, catching up on reading her stack of historical fiction, reconnecting with old friends, focusing on restoring her own health, and enjoying cooking healthy meals. She spends lots of time with her three grandchildren and is planning a long-awaited trip to Africa next year. She has lots of projects on her "when the mood strikes me" list but is in no hurry to tick them off. She is delighted to find that she can enjoy being a human being.
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​I hope you can see the power of this chapter as an essential element of the five-chapter process. Without a doubt, change is hard. And we humans dearly love routine, the status quo, and our safe and familiar habits. That’s what keeps us stuck. The changes needed to have a successful transition from one reality to a new reality can be made much easier if we:

• honor the past, shedding the old skin of our former identity and letting it go 
• take stock of current reality, accepting that our lives now must change
• chart a course for the future,
• and neutralize the blocks and barriers that are sure to derail us if we ignore them. Which brings us to…

​Chapter 5 – Living Your Best Chapter. Stay tuned for the next post which will outline the elements of the final chapter of your incredible journey!
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If you would like to have a no pressure conversation with Rebecca please click HERE.

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