Enlarge Your Capacity by Doing Less in Transitions
A common tension in transition revolves around the question of how to sustain a healthy balance between being and doing. While transition requires leaning into both, we often wrestle with finding a healthy cadence.
A common tension in transition revolves around the question of how to sustain a healthy balance between being and doing. While transition requires leaning into both, we often wrestle with finding a healthy cadence.
How does your style and temperament react to change? Do you tend to lean into your doing/task orientation side, while neglecting God's invitation to just be? Or, do you welcome and create space for rest and reflection, ending up with a long list of transition-to-do's, overwhelmed at the end of the day?
Navigating a transition back to the states following 20 years of life overseas, I vented to my counselor and rattled off all the reasons I was not getting a fair shake. He interjected something which stopped me in my tracks. He said, “Tim, have you taken time to breathe?”
It hit me: I needed to come up for air, but I was fighting it. I needed fresh perspective, and the only way for that to happen would be to enter into God's invitation to rest. At that juncture in transition, I needed to slow down and choose what I had been considering a luxury for later when the dust settled…reflection and rest. Yet, slowing down in transition was one of the best things I did for myself (and those around me).
Here I'm reminded of a quote by Charles Spurgeon:
Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength…. It is wisdom to take leave. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less. (An All Around Ministry)
Indeed.
Difficult transitions are often complicated by decision fatigue, “the deteriorating quality of decisions made by an individual after a long session of decision making.” (Lark). If that's where you're at, why not linger a spell at the crossroads, allowing God's unhurried wisdom and counsel to take root in your heart, mind, and spirit?
Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But you said, 'We will not walk in it.' — Jeremiah 6:16, NIV
Slowing down, noticing, and asking is God's prescription for the clarity and confidence we so desperately need in seasons of change. It's also the path to enlarged capacity.
When we pause long enough and observe closely, we just might find ourselves moving beyond merely looking at the fog and feeling the stress levels rise; we actually might see more options and opportunities as the fog lifts. At the very least, we will know more peace through the uncertainty. When we only define capacity as doing more, we miss when our capacity for being—in this case peace—grows.
The following exercises combine the doing and being components of transition. Done with intentionality, in community, and possibly with outside support such as coaching or spiritual direction, they will help you slow down and serve to inform your transition to-do list. Thus, your to-be and to-do list reflects what truly matters. Here are three exercises:
1. Values clarification helps us discover (or remember) our true north in transition seasons. Taking a deep dive into values clarity has a way of grounding us through the uncertainty of change. Knowing our needs and values serves to anchor us in what matters most and to prioritize those areas. From time to time at Global Trellis, we offer a full needs and values assessment and the opportunity to unpack your results within a group of like-minded individuals. For a start, you may want to try out this abbreviated needs and values worksheet and unpack your findings with a trusted friend or family member.
2. Discernment takes time and intentionality. Simply forming the questions we need to ask in transition is no easy task. Slowing down long enough to enter into conversations with God and His people helps solidify the important questions and top priorities. Here are some examples of great questions to ask in a season of discernment.
3. Rest, renew, and review on a regular basis. I've discovered it helps me to regularly sit with a set of reflection questions. Engaging with these questions weekly helps me celebrate wins, cultivate gratitude, re-align with my values, and decide my priorities. They aren't magical, but they are another way to cultivate a rhythm of purposeful reflection.
One final word of encouragement
Be prepared. You're up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it's all over but the shouting you'll still be on your feet. (Ephesians 6:13, The Message)
Transitions are opportunities to stand in the juncture of two or more paths and consider the options. When we take time to put on the brakes and stand in a crossroads, we are able to notice what lies in front of us with prayerful curiosity. We are more likely to end up in a good place when it's all said and done, with capacity for being able to handle all of the doing that transitions require.
A season of coaching can help you strike a healthy balance between being and doing in transition. Let’s have a conversation!
Schedule Custom Life Coach Call — Encompass Life Coaching
*This article was originally published on Global Trellis
Processing Transition (aka learning to trust)
Every major transition requires a degree of trust and engagement, reflection and action. Here are some important questions to consider when navigating difficult transition seasons.
When someone comes to me for coaching, I pay careful attention to the language they use when describing their transition. This will give me some clue as to a potential client’s readiness for coaching. If the emphasis is on finding a way of escape instead of engaging a process, we have some work to do.
While God has been known to lead us out of the hard (i.e. He brought the Israelites out of Egypt), He more often leads us through uncertainty. In other words transition is a process.
Get me out of this!
The language of escape sends up some red flags for me. Naturally, nobody likes the pain and uncertainty that transition brings up. So I listen to their story, acknowledge the loss, and challenge them to rethink their approach. Here’s some questions I might ask them (and you) to consider:
What if I were to honor God’s ways instead of demanding my own?
What if I made intentional choices to live according to my values rather than my default behaviors?
What if I trusted God to provide everything I need in this exhausting process of getting from shore to shore?
What if I decided what I want to be true about me when I emerge on the other side?
Do I see transition as chaos or opportunity for transformation? Which one has been my go-to paradigm?
Lord, how do you want to meet me here?
These are process-focused questions which get to the heart of God’s growth agenda for us in transition. They create space, allowing time for reflection and discernment. And yet the temptation is to grab for the first thing in our arsenal to combat a hard transition; we go to solution-focused questions in hopes to solve the problem, get past the hard, and leap to the next thing. Solution-focused questions might look like this:
How can I get them to see my side of things?
How can I create more stability for my family?
Do I really want this responsibility?
Should I start exploring new opportunities?
Why should I put up with all this uncertainty when I could be…
Who doesn’t like a good shortcut, right? This approach may create movement, but it lacks direction and depth, short-circuiting the process and keeping us on the surface.
Don’t get me wrong. There is a time and place for solution-based questions, for taking a more active role in initiating movement and change. But we should be careful not to prioritize our own solutions over the Father’s process.
Every difficult transition comes with the looming question, Can I trust the process? Which reminds me of one of my favorite Oswald Chambers quotes…
“What is my dream of God’s purpose? His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose of God. God is not working towards a particular finish; His end is the process — that I see Him walking on the waves, no shore in sight, no success, no goal, just the absolute certainty that it is all right because I see Him walking on the sea. It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God.”
Trust the process. Alright Chambers, I see your point. But this trust you’re talking about seems to be the first thing that gets sabotaged in transition. We mistake transition as a problem to solve rather than an opportunity to engage a process of growth. And there goes trust out the window.
Merely processing as a problem-solving approach does not produce the growth God desires in transition seasons. Both sides of the coin are necessary and good given the proper time and place. But as transition relates to the deeper work God desires to do in us, what might need to shift in terms of how you engage the process?
Alicia Britt Chole challenges us in this regard:
“Process can be a troublesome thing. It disrupts us and disorients us and we would much rather skip to the end. But to live true, we must allow process to run its course. Question it, weep through it, agonize over it . . . but, for the sake of our souls, we dare not truncate process because time alone makes its work soul-deep.”
Because Alicia writes from a lent devotional perspective, she is challenging the reader to “fast” something. She continues…
“Today, fast premature resolution. Resist tidying up when you are in the muddy middle of the process of obedience-in-the-making. Befriend undone. Name the trouble. Like Jesus, talk to yourself and your Father God. Ask Him if alternative routes exist again and again and again . . . until you push through resistance, pass around resentment, press past resignation, and emerge into willful (even if tearful) partnership with God.” - Alicia Britt Chole, 40 Days of Decrease
We are constantly in process from a growth and development perspective. And, we are perpetually processing from a problem solving perspective. These are the two sides of the processing coin.
Take another look at the two sets of processing questions above. Which ones most resonate with you, and why? Might you need to “fast” the solution-focused questions for a season in order to get to the deeper questions?
If you’d like to start intentionally engaging your transition, download my free PDF “Five Essentials for a Winning Transition”.