I Am in Transition: How Will I Know if I've Done the Work?

You Haven't Failed. You Just Don't Know the Rules Yet.

One of my clients recently landed his first interim executive role. It pays well, it's interesting work, and it will almost certainly open doors to the next opportunity. By any objective measure, it's a win. And yet, when we spoke last, he told me he was not fully celebrating this brilliant new opportunity, at least not yet, because it felt like full time employment did not invite him to play.

I've heard this before. I've felt this before.

Almost ten years ago, after about six months of searching, I launched my own consulting practice. At the time, I told myself it was a pivot. But honestly? It felt like the market had said no to me, and I was making the best of it. I had lost confidence in myself and quietly convinced myself I had failed; that consulting was my consolation prize.

I was completely wrong. First, I had not yet done the work required to land the next opportunity. Six months? Not long enough. I didn't count, but I was probably 30-40 networking meetings in and felt like surely that was enough to surface an opportunity. Second, had I been paying more attention and frankly letting go of my ego more, I would have seen that this was the perfect pivot for me. I know that now.

I absolutely love what I do, and I wouldn't change a thing about my work life of the last ten years. That consolation prize became the best professional decision of my life. But I didn't know that then, because nobody had given me the context I needed to evaluate where I actually was in the process.

Here's the context I wish I'd had that I want to share with you.

The search takes longer than anyone tells you.

For someone senior conducting a serious job search, one where you're doing the work, takes approximately nine months and roughly 150 networking meetings before you land. Not 60. Not 90. Certainly not the 30 I put in. One hundred and fifty meetings, and nine months of sustained, disciplined effort.

Most executives don't know this going in. And when they don't know it, they grade themselves against an imaginary benchmark. They hit month five and think they're behind. They reach 50 meetings and wonder why nothing has happened yet. They start to internalize the silence as rejection.

I have another client right now who is in exactly that place. She's five and a half months in, she's had about 50 networking meetings, she's been interviewing, she's been progressing. By every measure I can see, she is exactly where she should be. And yet she came to me recently ready to admit defeat.

She is not failing. She is running a marathon and she's at kilometre 28, convinced she can't finish, not knowing that the course is 42 kilometres and she's actually ahead of pace.

Here's what "settling" usually means.

When an executive in transition tells me they've settled, what they're usually describing is one of two things: they made a move before they finished the work, or they made a different move than they originally imagined and haven't yet given themselves permission to call it a success.

My client in his interim role didn't settle. He made a smart, strategic move that keeps him active, keeps him earning, and keeps him visible. That's not a consolation prize. That's good judgment. He’s doing work that will open doors to the next work. Plus, since when do executives stay in role for five or 10 years? As my colleague Kevin Tennant said recently, every executive is in an interim gig, they just don’t know it yet.

My consulting practice wasn't a fallback. It was a door I walked through when I stopped waiting for a different door to open, and it led somewhere better than I'd planned. Way better, in fact.

The question to ask yourself isn't, "Did I settle?" It's: Have I done the work yet?

150 meetings. Nine months. Serious, sustained effort. If you're not there yet, you're not behind. You're just early. If you made a move before you got there, it might not be settling. It might be the beginning of something you haven't fully recognized yet.

If you're in transition right now and you're not sure whether you're off track or just impatient, I'd love to talk. Sometimes all it takes is the right context, and someone who's been there.

Sherry Pedersen-Ajmani is an Executive Coach and Career Transition Consulting based in Toronto. Reach out to sherry@talentcraft.ca.