You’re an oddity.
You have a long career in the corporate world and have traveled extensively for work but you’ve spent your whole life and career living only miles from where you and your wife were raised. Never had to entertain a corporate relocation. You’re entrenched in your community, have deep friendships and family ties there, have spent 25 year making a very old house your home and cherish the time sitting on your front porch each morning and evening.
But, now, you’ve hugged that porcupine, made yourself uncomfortable and accepted a job 1,000 miles away from everything and everyone that has made your life so rich. What do you do? How do you make the transition? How do you create a new you while still being the old you?
This is me.
I’m fortunate in that I’ve been able to keep my home in Pennsylvania while setting up a home and future in Florida. This gives me the opportunity to connect with home every few weekends while allowing my wife to get away every few weeks to visit me, but that still leaves plenty of time for me to be alone with my thoughts, fears, worries and concerns about whether I made the right decision.
If you’re facing a career move that takes you away from what you’ve known personally, professionally and geographically, consider doing some (or all) of these things:
- Plan: Visualize the new reality. Anticipate. Check the boxes that need to be checked to make the transition easier.
- Re-create: Keep practices and behaviors that have proven productive and successful for you in the past.
- Create: Process, absorb and adopt new routines at work and your new home that can help you stretch your limits and solidify your success.
- Fill: Maximize your weekend schedules, learn your new surroundings. Don’t lament what you’re missing where you were, be eager to discover new things where you are.
- Embrace: Join the local chapter of your alumni association, find your new favorite restaurant, pub, local park, neighborhood diversion.
- Connect: Facetime friends back home, commit to calling friends on your drive home, bridge the geographic divide by purposely pulling friends and family closer.