Lou Reads... Transitions by William Bridges

"Making sense of life's changes". What this book taught me about change and how it has influenced me.

This is one of the books that really deepened my interest in change and how it works. I first read it around ten years ago. It’s much older than that - originally written in 1979. It tells stories of change from people who attended a seminar, taught by Bridges, called ‘Being in Transition’. The meaning of the phrase being in transition has evolved and become more specific, now. Bridges uses it in its broader sense. The people who came to the course all had big changes going on in their lives - being promoted, going through a separation or divorce, starting a family, recovering from a heart attack, being fired.

The book explores and explains their stories and how they helped each other to navigate the changes they were going through. It also brings in frameworks and approaches to change from different authors and cultures. Bridges explores rites of passage, the hero’s journey, Homer’s odyssey, the natural seasons of life from Hinduism, and more.

The thing that interested me the most is the way that Bridges describes what change is. This is something that is now woven through my whole approach to helping people. Given how much it influenced my approach, I decided to make this book the first in the series of Lou Reads. Note that these are not book reviews. Instead, I’m going to give my own take on the content, and how it influences my own relationship with change and my work. With doodles!

Let’s dive in.

Change vs. change: A fundamental distinction.

In the 2nd edition of his book (2004), Bridges emphasises the difference between changes that happen in the external world (out there) and the ones that happen in our internal world (in here, in my mind).

Changes that happen in the external world are things that aren’t just down to you. Things like a relationship starting or ending, moving to a new place, changing your job. The birth or death of people close to you. Getting a new boss, merging with another team, or being handed a new project. These are all things that happen on the outside of our minds and bodies. And these kinds of changes are often the reason people approach me. Because something on the outside has changed, and they need a guide to help them to navigate that.

Changes that happen on the outside set off a chain reaction; they affect the things around them. Like ripples bumping into each other on a pond. This includes what’s inside us. Changes on the outside often affect how we see ourselves, and how we think about ourselves. Changes on the inside include the thoughts that we have about what’s happening. How we feel about it. How we talk to ourselves about it. Missing our partner or children (or both) because the new promotion means we’re working longer hours. Wondering who we are now that we are no longer the other half of that relationship that has meant so much, for so long. Wondering what we’re good at now we’re not working at that job any more.

Sometimes, this change on the inside is so big that we might even have to redefine how we see ourselves completely. Sometimes that’s as simple as having to switch to saying ‘my ex-partner’ instead of ‘my partner.’ Other times it’s more complex. And who feels equipped for redefining how we see ourselves?!? When has that process ever felt smooth, and easy? Or bumpy, and hard?

This book helped me to understand that this internal stuff, the stuff that feels bumpy and hard - this is the stuff we can get better at. We just need some simple vocabulary, and some simple tools. And the opportunity to practice with those, and reflect. Whilst people most often approach me for help when things outside them have changed, I work a lot on this other kind of change, too: The change that’s going on inside.

An interaction.

There’s something more, here, I think. Not only do outside changes influence inside changes. It also works the other way around. When we change the way we think about ourselves, it changes how we turn up in the world. How we think, how we act, and how we behave. We see new and different things, and we respond differently than we did before.

Responding to ‘what is’.

I love this direct quote from the book: that the future doesn’t get delivered, like the post or the newspaper or your emails. Bridges says, “The future comes looking like something else”. So how can we be ready for the future to come looking, if it’s going to come looking like something else? Something we’re not expecting?

We can improve our decision making capabilities, and develop a set of tools that we can use when the future comes. We’re ready with deep knowledge about ourselves so we can notice, respond and decide with confidence. Being primed with what’s really important to us means that we notice what comes along that fits with that, even if it doesn’t look like we expect it to.

What helps? What doesn’t change.

Reading (and re-reading!) this book helped me to understand just how much the things that don’t change are important. When things are changing around us, when we’re in the space between how things were and how things will be, it’s really helpful to find the constants. The anchors.

I include work on values in the Design for Life programme because values rarely change (or if they do, it’s pretty subtle compared to other kinds of changes). I love values because they give us some certainty as we navigate outside and inside changes. They also give us a guide, a sort of marker, to help us respond to changes. Maybe I don’t know what I’m going to do yet but I do know that I want to do it with grace, and flair, and a sense of service. For me, this is better than not knowing anything. There are a few ways of getting at your values and defining them for yourself. Watch out for some tools and activities you can use in coming posts.

Read the book yourself.

If you’d like to read the book yourself, here’s the full details:

William Bridges (2004). Transitions: Making sense of life’s changes. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA, Da Capo Press.

Credit: The doodles on this page originally appeared on instagram here. Credit @loushackleton.