You reach the valley floor after climbing a mountain.  The level terrain is welcoming and offers a chance to reflect on the next peak ahead.  Be careful, however, as valleys are where the fog tends to collect.  Too much time in the valley and you might lose your motivation or clarity for moving forward.  Too little time, rushing ahead to attack the next climb, and you might not be well prepared.  Transition points are hard.  It’s a tricky balance to handle the ambiguous journey between an ending and a new beginning.

It’s common for these “in between” times to be quite challenging.  You end a relationship, graduate from college, or leave a job.  You know where you’ve been, but you don’t quite yet know where you’re going. Even if it’s a change for the better, leaving something that wasn’t right for you, it’s hard to be in the middle.  Doubts can start to creep in.  Did I make the right choice?  Old memories fill your head, because you’ve nothing to replace them with yet.  It’s hard to trust that someone or something better will come.  It’s a time of great anxiety and emptiness.  The discomfort can be overwhelming, making this is a time to be careful.  Very careful, in fact.  During transitions, people often lose their good judgment, in order to get rid of the pain.

It’s tempting to rush into something just to replace what you lost.  Not knowing what you want to do or if the right person will come along is scary.  It’s easy to fool yourself into thinking something is right, even when at some level you know it isn’t.  Filling a hole can feel good temporarily, but the long term effects can really set you back and be costly with consequences.  The other temptation is to give up on your goal. Waiting for something, like having to save up for a house, or taking the prerequisites before you can enter the program you want, or spending lonely nights in order to choose the right new friends, can wear you down.  It’s easy to get too comfortable, giving up on the goal, convincing yourself it’s for the best, or worse yet, convincing yourself it’s what you wanted all along.

So when descending to the valley, it helps to have a map.  While you can’t know for sure what the next step will be, you can plan to make the best of your time in between. Set some goals and activities to add structure to your life.  For example, while waiting for a new job, take a class, or after leaving a relationship, spend time with people you rarely get to see.  Take advantage of the shift in your life that may create openings for new things.  Rather than feeling like your life is empty while you wait for something, enjoy the now as much as you can.  But set some time limits, too, so you won’t lose the path to your ultimate goal.  For example, give yourself a year of travel after college, but set the date when you will begin to prepare for graduate school.  You can always renegotiate, but the time frame commitment will keep you assessing your progress and choices.

Change is hard, and often a good part of the reason for this is the “in between.”  Your mind can play tricks with you and it’s easy to get lost.  Without the clear direction of the mountain pass, the valley can lead you in circles.  So use your time to rest, regroup, and refocus.  And if the next mountain you were hoping for is not on the horizon, change course.  By pivoting just a little bit in any direction, an entirely new range might come into view.