Life is nothing but a continuous transition
Since I even have been a Roger Federer fan for a long time, I used to be excited concerning the latest documentary Federer: Twelve final days. We watch Federer from the moment he announced his retirement to his final match on the Laver Cup. We witness how difficult it’s for him to let go of his calling and identity for the vast majority of his life. Federer talks about his feelings at the tip of his profession and the way he plans to stay connected to tennis in a roundabout way. He admits how good tennis has been to him.
The power of the documentary lies in how vulnerable and emotional Federer is in front of the camera, his team, his friends and his rivals. Unfortunately, many men in our society are discouraged from expressing their feelings. One particularly moving scene is about to finish the Laver Cup between him and his biggest rival Rafael Nadal. Both are emotional because Nadal realizes that a part of his lifestyle can be coming to an end. One mentions that “athletes die twice” – once after they retire and again after they die.
This idea may also be present in The weight of golda 2020 documentary concerning the challenges within the lives of Olympic athletes. While we predict that winning a gold medal means being the best on the earth, many athletes struggle with mental health issues. What do you do next after winning a number of gold medals? Narrated by Michael Phelps, the documentary focuses on life transitions and the way difficult transitions are without support and resources.
The documentary highlights that athletes do not know the way to transition from training to be Olympians to retiring and living and dealing as extraordinary residents. Several of the athletes said, “Nobody prepared me for life after the Olympics.”
Even though most of us will not be Olympic athletes, all of us struggle with “life after” because for a lot of, retirement looks like death.
Understanding life transitions
Just a few years ago I had the chance to interview William Bridges, one in all the leading experts on life transitions and creator of Transitions: Understanding the changes in life And The Path of Transition: Embracing Life’s Most Difficult Moments. Bridges has developed a transition framework that’s utilized by leaders in organizations and communities to create profound change. I even have used Bridges’ work for a few years to teach people for all times after retirement, because it is a difficult transition. Bridges refers to those phases as inner reorientation, as our inner life recalibrates to the changes going down.
Contrary to what we normally think, we don’t resist change (external events). We resist the strategy of transition (the inner and emotional elements related to change). We resist letting go of the way it was or how we thought it was. We resist assuming a brand new identity or embracing the brand new situation. In the Bridges model, transition consists of three phases:
1. Ends: which frequently result in sadness, anger or regret. We start with endings because we do not start anything without something ending. We cannot move on without leaving something else behind. Something is lost and we must learn to let go. We must recognize that individuals mourn what’s lost.
2. The neutral zone: which ends up in fear and confusion. It’s not a lot that we’re afraid of change or in love with the old ways, but we fear the place in between… The neutral zone is like being caught between trapezes – dangling at a terrific height. We’re afraid to let go of the trapeze if we do not see one other one nearby.
3. New beginnings: a combination of confidence in what has been achieved and fear of what has been lost, in addition to concern about falling back into old habits.
Interestingly, endings or latest beginnings don’t trouble us as much because the neutral zone does. That’s why we go from one bad job to the following, from one bad relationship to the following. We don’t take the time within the neutral zone to process, reflect, and learn why it ended or why the change happened. Bruce Feiler, creator of Life is a transition: mastering change at any agecalls the neutral zone the “chaotic middle” due to the uncertainty and inconvenience.
Let go
Endings are hard and athletes retire much sooner than most of us. We can learn so much from their struggles and the way in which they handle the transition. As with a physical death, there may be grief and loss. In Twelve last days, Federer is amazingly emotional in his last match. It’s as if his best friend has died. Even Nadal shows us his sadness because he knows he’s losing his biggest rival, who pushed his abilities to the limit.
Serena Williams found it difficult to focus on tennis after the birth of her first daughter. “As a very hands-on mother, I can’t tell you how hard it was. I lost so many matches after the Olympics because it was so hard to be on the court. I feel like I’ve dedicated so much of my life to tennis, my whole life, that it’s time to do something else for myself and work on other things too.” As Serena Williams When she announced her retirement, she said she was “evolving away from tennis.” That’s a wonderful phrase since it shows she’s leaving something behind and moving on to something else while growing in the method.
Although Roger Federer has struggled to let go, he has evolved and reflected on what he has learned from his tennis profession. This spring, he delivered the Opening speech in Dartmouth and describes his departure from tennis and the life lessons he learned. Federer admits: “Even when I was just starting out, tennis could show me the world, but tennis could not be the world.”
When you look back in your life, what’s your Tennis? What has shaped you prior to now that it’s worthwhile to let go of once you retire? What are you able to do to evolve? What will keep you going and the way will you proceed to grow? While leaving your major profession means the tip of a chapter in your life, it does create space for something latest, which will be exciting.
