Transitions

The national bestselling, simple, three-step guide for coping with changes in life and work, now updated and expanded.

First published in 1980, Transitions was the first book to explore the underlying and universal pattern of transition. Recently named one of the fifty most important self-help books of all time, Transitions remains the essential guide for coping with the inevitable changes in life.

Transitions takes readers step-by-step through the three perilous stages of any transition, explaining how each stage can be understood and embraced. Offering an elegantly simple yet profoundly insightful roadmap for successfully navigating change and moving into a hopeful future, the process is ever relevant and applicable today:

Endings. Every transition begins with one. Too often we misunderstand them, confuse them with finality—that's it, all over, finished! Yet how we recognize endings is key to how we can begin anew.

The Neutral Zone. The second hurdle of transition: a seemingly unproductive time-out when we feel disconnected from people and things in the past and emotionally unconnected to the present. Yet the neutral zone is really a time of reorientation. How can we make the most of it?

The New Beginning. In transitions we come to beginnings only at the end, when we launch new activities. To make a successful new beginning requires more than simply persevering. It requires an understanding of external signs and inner signals that point the way to the future.