Each change journey comes to an end. If it has been successful, you will be living the new reality that you defined when you created your change story. In The Art of Pilgrimage, Phil Cousineau wrote, “The challenge is to learn how to carry over the quality of the journey into your everyday life. The art of pilgrimage is the craft of taking time seriously, elegantly.” With this, my 100th post, I pass on some of the ways I have learned to carry those lessons over.
“Returning Home”
If this was a big change, you and those who accompanied you have learned a lot. Your thinking has shifted. Most likely you have cut loose some old anchors, redefined your connection to other anchors, and established new ones. You may have developed new skills. Priorities may well have shifted. It’s likely that you are acting, thinking, and perhaps even looking, different.
Don’t be surprised that life is different now. Even if your physical “home” (whether home or workplace for the journey) is the same, you are not. You are living a new normal.
Reflection
Take time to reflect, and to catalog what those changes are and how they occurred. As different as every change is, the underlying patterns are the same. What can you discern from this journey that may be of use on your next one?
Intention
If this was a big change, and it was successful, there was a clear intent from the start, and there was a concerted effort to remain true to it throughout the journey. Your success required, as quoted above, “taking time seriously, elegantly.”
Now that the journey is over, what is your intention? You need to identify it, to declare it, to commit to it if you are to “carry over the quality of the journey into your everyday life.”
What You Passed By
“How long the road is. But, for all the time the journey has already taken, how you have needed every second of it in order to learn what the road passes by,” (Dag Hammarskjold, Markings).
What did you pass by in order to take this journey?
Of all those things, which are best left “passed by?” Which are worthy of now attending to?
Stop, Start, Continue
The end of the change journey is a “stop.” It could be that the stop came slowly, as you maneuvered your way along the path and overcame the obstacles that awaited you. Or it could be that it came surprisingly quickly as synchronicity helped move you over the threshold. Either way, don’t let the mental, physical, and psychological energy that you were investing in the journey be eaten by all the urgencies that now arise.
Pay attention to what is now important; invest there. Now that you have reached a “stop,” you have the ability to intentionally make another “start.”
Celebrate
This is special. Treat it as such. Find a way to honor yourself, along with all of those who made the journey with you. In the business world, research says that only about 30% of organizational change initiatives deliver on their promise. At the personal level, we may do better. But whatever the statistics are, if you were in it and “win it,” celebrate!
What do you do when you successfully complete a change journey? Comment below.