How to optimize a transition

Welcome to the ArtsBound Newsletter. Every Tuesday, I share three thoughts or insights meant to help you flourish in your life and career. This week, we’re looking at proactive thinking as it relates to 1) major life transitions, 2) how we spend our time, and 3) COVID-19.

1. Optimizing major life transitions

I just posted an article titled “5 Essential Questions to Ask Yourself at a College Visit or Job Interview”. In the article, I examine the types of questions we ask when we are making a big change like taking a new job, embarking on a major project, choosing a school to attend, or moving to a new location.

It seems to me that, when we are in our earlier years and haven’t yet realized the power we have in our given circumstances, we are more likely to ask reactive questions - those that are concerned more with fitting into a certain place or culture. I believe the proverbial mid-life crisis (or quarter-life crisis for us millennials) occurs when we realize that our external environment is not going to deliver on the fulfillment we thought it would provide.

I’ve come up with five questions meant to focus our attention on proactively assessing a prospective environment on the basis of how it might facilitate our flourishing.

They are:

1. Will I have ample opportunities to use my favorite skills and knowledge?

2. Will I be able to learn what I hope to learn?  

3. Will I have or be able to gain access to the right people?

4. Will the geography of the place help to facilitate my desired lifestyle?

5. Will I be appreciated for the genuine value I have to offer?

You can read the full article HERE.

2. What are you learning in your free time?

Your environment can definitely have an impact on your flourishing. But where we invest our time, energy, attention - regardless of our environment - is also a major factor. 

In the very first episode of The ArtsBound Podcast, I spoke with drummer/composer Chris Leidhecker. Both of Chris’s parents retired from teaching music in the public schools. Chris also went to college for music education, although he never actually taught public school.

In our conversation, Chris makes a point about how his alma mater (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), while it has a strong music program, is far from having national recognition. In other words, his educational pedigree is not a driver of his success as a professional.

Chris cites the way he spent his free time as being far more important - even more important than the degree program he chose. 

For example, one year, he wanted to learn more about jazz piano. He talked with someone who played well and asked what he should practice. When I visited Chris that summer, he was working on learning to play a complicated chord progression in all twelve keys. Another time, he wanted to learn more about music arranging and composing, and so he asked a professor if he could write something for the ensemble he performed with.

Neither of those pursuits was a part of his degree program, but both of them have contributed to his skill as a composer which now wins him gigs writing for TV. 

(He also wrote the music for The ArtsBound Podcast :-)

Chris created his own learning opportunities instead of just accepting what he was given, and he continues to full-heartedly go after the things that most excite him. This approach to life has been so influential for him that it is one of the first pieces of wisdom he will share if you ask him about success and fulfillment.

Learn more about Chris and his work at his website: http://www.leidhecker.com/chris

Listen to my full interview with Chris HERE. 

3. COVID-19 as a global transition

This isn’t an original idea, and I’m sure you’ve already thought about it yourself. Celebrities, social commentators, politicians, business leaders, even astrologers have noted how the year 2020 is bound to be a significant marker in the evolution of our society.

The lockdown has created real challenges and hardships for many of us. However, simultaneously, most of us can also identify beneficial insights or perspectives we’ve received as a result of staying at home more: cooking more homemade meals, going for more walks, spending more time with the kids, spending more time in nature, burning less gasoline in our cars, etc.

But we are also feeling the collective pull to return to our familiar ways of being. In many cases, this is much needed (I’m so ready to feel comfortable hugging and shaking hands with people again!). But it would be a great loss if we let the new insights and healthier ways of living slip away as COVID-19 moves into our rearview mirrors. 

In last week’s newsletter, I shared an ARTICLE that discusses some of the lessons we might find embedded in our pandemic experience. One of those lessons, in short, is to live your truth despite pushback from skeptics.

In that article, I used the pandemic as an allegory for other truths you were meant to live, but I think the concept also applies directly to this case.

While shifts in perspective have been widespread and embraced by influential entities (e.g. big tech companies allowing employees to work from home indefinitely), I think that incorporating these new positive facets of our lifestyle as the pandemic wanes could feel a bit like swimming upstream. 

So, allow this musing to be a source of encouragement for you to take stock and take hold of the happy changes that have visited you during the past six months. 

And here’s to more hugs and homemade meals.