Navigating Transitions is a seminar offered to companies with employees facing retirement or job loss. Using the shared experiences of past participants who are retirees or unemployed, as well as evidence-based research about the mind, emotions and the process of change, this workshop offers ideas and tools for working through major life transitions.

1. “The past is prologue.” Wm Shakespeare
The past sets the scene for how we manage the
present moment and create the future.
Examine past major life changes
How do you prepare for a
new role in life?
How do you think about change?

2. This presentation explores issues related to
 Preparing For Retirement
 Dealing With Unexpected Unemployment
 Creating identity in the “new normal”

3. 1. Examine the Five Keys for Navigating Life Transitions:
 Self-Knowledge: our personal approach to change
 Self-Awareness: what we need for life satisfaction
 Social Networks: connections that promote well-
being
 Creative Courage for re-invention
 Openness to the unknown
Magellan
Health
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4.  Clarifies what we have going for us and feel
confident about;
 Opens up possibilities for new habits of mind
that are adapted to new circumstances in life;
 Sheds light on the role we play in making our
lives work;

5. A) I need to have as much information as
possible and have a Plan A, Plan B and Plan C.
B) I try not to think about it, just wait and see
what shakes out.
C) I imagine the worst. That way I am prepared
for the things I fear and happy if none of them
occur.
D) I have learned that all I can do is bring my
best game to the present moment.

6. A) I get a good start but when obstacles arise I
can lose energy and slide back;
B) When I get clarity about what I want I will do
the work to get there;
C) I use obstacles as creative challenges; I don‟t
always overcome them but I get stronger
because of them.
D) No matter how hard I work at at, something
always interferes with my making the goal;

7. “Part of the transition to retirement, I have been told and have personally found true,
is to both imagine and begin to live as a retiree before formal retirement.” Ralph T.
“I am a person who needs a long “warm-up” to important change, i.e. I like to research
what I‟m getting into, think about it from many different angles, and go through all
the „what-ifs.‟ But in my case the offer of a retirement package gave me about 30 days
to make a decision. I had thought about the eventual exit from the job for years and
talked about it with my colleagues on a regular basis, but the actual decision-making
in such a short time was hard for me. I had to do my „adjustment thinking‟ after the
fact. But because I know myself I understood that those first months when I felt
disoriented and anxious were something I had to go through and would pass.” Nate W.
“I worked for 30 years in a large system with fairly rigid and consistent rules. I was
able to be quite creative and innovative as far as the projects I worked on, but the
organization itself was highly structured. I did some consulting work and built up
some clients for a year or so before I retired, because I knew that being productive
would continue to be a high priority for me. But I am a fairly disciplined person so I
did not miss the rules and created my own structure.” Ben P.

8. Some questions to guide self-awareness:
 Today, when you first introduce yourself to a
stranger, how often do you name your job,
title, occupation or profession?
 What pursuits do you have in mind for your
future that might replace fulfillment you find
in your work today?
 What is your view of a successful ending?

9. “I run for exercise and for my mental well-being, and my wife used
to complain that running consumed too much of the little spare
time we had when we were both working and raising kids. For years
I had to make deals with my wife as to how I would fit running into
all our responsibilities. Now that we are retired and I am training
for marathons she is thrilled that I have something guaranteed to
get me out of the house and give her some space.” Dell P.
“At Bell Labs – for most of the 25 years I was there – there were
retirement parties and a big send-off when someone reached that
milestone. When I left, it was after my entire department had been
dismantled in a 60-day period and I had been leap-frogging from
project to project trying to stay with the company. My last day I
don‟t think anyone noticed I was leaving because things were so
disconnected. The tension and instability those last few years made
the ending more bitter than sweet and I had to resolve it on my
own.” Jack G.

10. Social networks either support or block our
happiness and health;
Strong interpersonal skills are directly
associated with emotional and physical well-
being;

11. Persons with more types of social relationships live longer
and have less cognitive decline with aging, greater
resistance to infectious disease, and better prognoses
when facing chronic life-threatening illnesses. “Can We Improve
Our Physical Health By Altering Our Social Networks?” Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol. 4
No. 4 2009
“The role of social environments may be especially important for
older persons who commonly experience major social transitions
such as retirement, bereavement, and inability to participate in
social activities because of disability or lack of mobility. But social
integration literature suggests that social environments play an
essential role in the health and well-being of people who are neither
challenged by major life stressors nor by serious disease” (emphasis
added) Pillemer, K., et al Social integration in the second half of life. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press)
2000

12. “We moved to an area where most of our neighbors are retirees,
so we are with many „like‟ people. When I was employed it felt
right to be around people who had regular schedules. Now being
around retirees is our „new normal.‟” Sue T.
“We have moved to an area where our day-to-day friends are
retirees. I play a lot of golf. I worked in sales for years and I need
to be around people. Also I need to get out of my wife‟s hair.“
Dick L.
“I need to stay connected to my professional community because
I am very interested in developments in the field. I go to
conferences and connect with peers online to stay current, but it
is great to do this without the pressure of deadlines or
schedules.” Al J.

13. How to acquire creative courage in 3 easy steps:
 Be afraid.
 Focus your thinking and
emotions on the actions
needed here and now.
 Leave your comfort zone.
“Conscious creation takes great courage. To
To summon your energy, permit it to flow at
as it will, and express itself as something
new and unique with your personal stamp on it is
on it, is to to risk everything.” Annie Zalezsak

14. “My work environment, in past years, had a vibrant, "can-do“ positive,
productive quality to it: this was Bell Labs, a fantastically innovative
organization capable of conjuring multiple solutions to problems posed to
us, leaving „little doubt that it can be done.‟ Separation from that
environment, although voluntary, was traumatic to my ego and sense of
value as a contributor. To compensate, I needed to find outlets for my
energy and creativity, expressed through: tutoring, teaching, church
activities, deeper involvement with family [children and grandchildren], joint
projects with my wife. Sustaining intellectual stimulation is more of a
challenge and remains a work in progress.” Ralph T.
“My wife and I divorced a year before I was forced into retirement because
the company was sold and my job no longer existed. I had 2 kids in college
and no pension fund so at 58 years of age, for the first time in my life I was
a free-lancer and not by choice. After 5 years of struggle with a whole new
way of doing things I have more work than I can handle. It was very tough
but I can honestly say I am glad this happened because if I had not been
pushed out of my comfort zone I would never have taken the leap.” Len C.

15. Researchers using longitudinal data from the
Health and Retirement Study explored the
forces that shape changes in happiness
between the last wave of full employment and
the first wave of full retirement. What matters
is not the type of transition (gradual retirement
or cold turkey) but whether people perceive the
transition as chosen or forced. (emphasis added)
Estaban Calvo et al “Gradual Retirement, Sense of Control and Retirees‟ Happiness” Research on
Aging January 2009 vol. 31 no. 1 112-135

16. Resilience to stress and the capacity to
successfully navigate change is linked to:
 Understanding and engaging with our power to
create and exercise choice in a given situation;
 The cognitive choice to embrace uncertainty
and find the gifts in “not knowing” where the end
points are;
 Acceptance of situations as they are rather
than continually evaluating what we think they
should be because of ours or others‟
expectations. Wellness Councils of America

17.  “This is going to sound crazy. Say yes to
everything. Accept all offers. Go along with the
plan. Support someone else‟s dream. Say "yes";
"right"; "sure"; "I will"; "okay"; "of course"; "YES!"
Cultivate all the ways you can imagine to express
affirmation. When the answer to all questions is
yes, you enter a new world, a world of action,
possibility, and adventure. Yes glues us together.
Yes starts the juices rolling. Yes gets us into
heaven and also into trouble. Trouble is not so
bad when we are in it together, actually.” Improv
Wisdom, Patricia Ryan Madsen, retired from Emerita faculty, Stanford University

18. “I was an executive at an international company with a great deal of status and
responsibility, no family time when I was in town and lots of travel throughout the year. I
took a leave of absence to recover from surgery and when I returned to work neither my
position nor salary existed. Rather than take a demotion in what was clearly a
destabilized work environment I left and began a private tutoring service. The loss of
status was more difficult than the loss of income but after I adjusted to that I began to
enjoy the freedom of trying creative ways to network and get new business. I had to think
on my feet and redefine what it meant to be secure. Whatever happens with this new
venture I have more „muscle‟ for managing the unknown than I did before this happened.”
William R.
“My husband leased a snow-removal truck and was all set to make extra money clearing
roads in the winter - the first winter in years that it rained more than it snowed. We had to
make to payments on a truck we could not use. But trying to dig out of that financial
disaster led to some new connections with local people who hired him to do contracting
work that has turned out to be very successful. We had to let go of the vision we started
out with but I‟m glad we were able to say „yes‟ to things as they came up. I could not have
predicted how it is all turning out.” Louise S.

19.  Status – our sense of personal standing
 Certainty – the degree of predictability we perceive
 Autonomy – our sense of control over events
 Relatedness – our sense of personal safety with
others
 Fairness – our sense that the world works in an
equitable way
David Rock, “SCARF: A Brain-Based Model for Collaborating With & Influencing Others,”
Neuroleadership Journal

21. Develop your own “Board of Advisors.” Just as
an organization has a board of directors, you
can elect your own group of trusted people to
offer you counsel and support. Your board of
advisors may only have one thing in common:
you.
Richard Leider, founding partner of The Inventure Group

22. Contact us for a free consultation
631-366-4265 www.lifestage.org
Jude Treder-Wolff, LCSW, RMT, CGP &
Nicholas Wolff, LCSW, BCD, TEP