The Knottiness of Change

First published on March 31, 2017

This week, my head felt full. It felt like all the thoughts inside it were tangled in knots as I tried to think through the change I'm facing in my life, this week, as I leave my part-time role at the wonderful Clore Leadership Programme and take my coaching work full time. 

One of the things I've been saying to people is that this requires a shift in identity for me. This is true in many ways. I now have to accept that part of my identity is that I can start a business, and make it work. And this isn't something I had even considered a few years ago. And of course there are other shifts in who I am as I move into this next phase. 

And then I thought of some of the other shifts of identity I have had over the years. 

And in each of those there was confusion, sometimes real pain; there was this knottiness which left me tired and frustrated. 

But of course if you are changing the way you see yourself. If you are changing the things you do, the viewpoints and places from which you make decisions and decide your future, then that's going to be hard. You can't fall back on all your habits from before.

I heard Tim Ferriss say that if we had never done something we were under-qualified for we would all be sweeping streets. 

And to do something we are under-qualified for, to change our identity to something new, we have to go to a new level. We have to learn how to be that person, and learning requires us to stretch ourselves beyond what we know already. 

And that can feel knotty.