Transitions

Rattlesnake season came early in San Diego this year. There have been four rattlesnakes on my street in the last week alone. The neighborhood group chat has turned into a running feed of sightings and photos from trails, backyards, and sidewalks. They say the babies are more dangerous, but I don’t think “they” have been caught in a stare down with a full-grown rattler either. Not surprisingly, our annoying mice problem suddenly disappeared, which I guess is one positive.

All of it is a reminder of how quickly things can change.

Over the past year, I found myself in a similar place, as things began to shift in my professional life.

For a long time, saying yes felt like the best thing to do. More work and more activity meant things were moving in the right direction for my business. For a while, that was true. But then the path forward began to look too much like the path behind, and there was no joy for me in that.

Continuing in the same direction would have led to more of the same outcomes. And that meant a slow drift toward burnout and a general sense of being out of alignment. My clients would be getting version 1.0 longer than they should.

So I embraced an intentional season of transition. That may sound simple, but for a risk-averse solo attorney, that was a big leap of faith.

The transition that followed was not dramatic, but it was deliberate.

I started looking at how I operate my business. Everything was on the table, including revisiting systems that had been in place for a long time. I tried to accomplish at least one task each day, some larger than others. More importantly, I learned that small, intentional changes reshape the larger picture.

I also came to recognize that there were ideas in my head that had been sitting in the background for years. The kind of things that are easy to put off because they are uncomfortable. Making space for those required stepping away from the status quo and accepting a certain level of uncertainty.

Transitions, at least in my experience, rarely arrive all at once. They show up as a series of small decisions that slowly move things in a different direction. A willingness to acknowledge when something no longer fits and to adjust without needing a perfect plan. Fighting transitions rarely leads anywhere good.

What followed was gradual, but it was still movement. New opportunities began to surface in ways that were not predictable beforehand. My joy and passion resurfaced for the first time in a while.

Not everything has become easier. There are still a lot of unknowns. But there is a sense of clarity and strength in knowing that I am a lot closer to my 5-year plan than I was last year.

Spring is full of promise. This time of year has a way of bringing things out into the open. Transitions have a way of showing up whether we are ready or not. In what areas are you embracing them?