There is a small, disheveled baby robin making her very first steps in my garden today. She looks a bit dazed and exhausted, her lovely yellow down all awry. I know exactly what she feels like. She looks like a lot of people I know right now. At almost every age, everyone seems to be on the cusp of a similar transition: taking their first steps into an uncertain and illegible new world. As I write this, World War II planes fly overhead to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s official birthday. Like my own mother, who shares her birthday, she is turning 93. They are both remarkably well, and not finished with transitions.
Learn to Get Better at Transitions
Thanks to longer, healthier lives, human beings face more life transitions than ever before. No matter what age or stage you’re at, transitioning is a skill to work on. To do this, focus on four component skills. First, pacing and planning. Longevity means that, more than ever, we need to plan for change. Think of your life as a series of seven-year cycles. How do you want to spend them? Second, leaving gracefully. There comes a time in jobs, life phases, or relationships where you know an arc has reached its end. Knowing how to end well will become an increasingly valuable skill. Third, letting “the inside out.” Self-knowledge is a hard-won reward of aging. As you get to know yourself better, how do you want to spend your time? Fourth, letting “the outside in.” In other words, before you make a major transition, test it out and get some feedback from the world. Is this new thing what you thought it would be? And finally, learn to take the leap, because thinking and testing will only get you so far. Now that we have a few extra decades to test our wings, the real challenge may be remembering that it’s never too late to fly.