Think of transitioning as moving from one house to another. It doesn’t happen without an investment. You need to pack things into boxes, create lots of labels, and often move into a temporary home before your final location. On the arrival end, you then need to unpack boxes and peel off those labels before you can finally settle into that new home. Similarly, when working at 100% effectiveness (i.e., overdrive), regaining a sense of normality isn’t something that happens simply by waking up the next morning. You’ll need to be kind to yourself and realize that you may not be up to your normal workout routine or your typical night out adventures. In fact, you may find that you’ll need to mentally unplug, sit on the couch, and watch TV for 8 hours straight-to each his or her own. That doesn’t mean you are a slacker!

When beginning something new, we often look to others for guidance. But when looking at others, we can neglect to remember that what we’re looking at a finished product. For example, when beginning a new career, we may look to someone who is at the top of the field and model that person. But could we be setting ourselves up for disappointment by focusing on someone else’s outcome rather than focusing on our own process and personal goals? We often utilize rigid standards for tracking our progress in comparison to others. As a result, it’s easy to minimize our personal process in relation to an “ideal” process.