Elements of life transitions include roles, values, and self-understanding. Here’s how these elements may play out in your life.
Roles
We all experience a variety of different roles during our lives—child, parent, employee, friend, neighbor, volunteer, etc. With each life transition, we may face a shift in roles again.
If you are the parent of a college-bound high school senior, you learn to let go and be a support as s/he experiences the first major life launch. Your day-to-day role will change to free up more time for other aspects of your life especially if you are now also an empty-nester.
If you become a caregiver for a parent, spouse, or other family member, your caregiving role definitely alters the relationship. The give-and-take or spur-of-the-moment fun relationship now centers on responsibility for medical needs, well-being, and safety. As roles and responsibilities shift, you will feel a loss of the way it used to be—this is normal—and you will need to adjust.
Values
Transitions make us ask “what is really important to me at this stage of my life?” When several of my family members were faced with life-threatening illnesses, my work—although very important to me—shifted in the hierarchy of my values.
1. My work no longer took first place over family needs.
2. My perspective on planning for my own retirement changed as I realized how finite life is.
3. I was better able to hear my husband’s needs so together we could begin the planning process for our own retirement.
Our large family has always been important to me, but these family crises made my behavior consistent with this important value. It’s important to provide the resources to raise our families well—one of the major benefits of work—but we also need to be good role models for a healthy work/family-life balance.
Self-Understanding
In life transitions, we are forced to face deeper feelings of fear and resistance we may not be familiar with. Those with long-standing careers may find it challenging to re-define themselves with a new identity. Those who lose a loved one due to death or divorce must not only face the future alone but also assume added responsibilities that may have been shared or carried by the other person in the previous relationship.
You can master these elements of life transitions.
As you make life transitions in this new stage of life, think about the following questions:
1. Really look at how your role has changed and accept this “new normal.”
2. Reorder your priorities based on your current values.
3. Practice new behaviors to go with the shift in roles and values your life transition brings.
4. Decide on how you will identify yourself without your work or your former roles.
5. Find a coach or mentor to help you make your next life transition a success.
Make the best of your life for the rest of your life as you prepare for retirement with Retirement Lifestyle Strategies coaching and resources from Dee Cascio.