“Where do you see yourself in seven years?”
I was asked this question while giving a presentation on how to prepare for the future. I answered from a place of complete contentment. If you had asked me whether I loved what I did, I would have said yes, without hesitation.
I have come to believe the universe senses that kind of contentment. And if you are not going to change on your own, it will change for you.
The Signals Before the Decision
Four years into a job I loved, after I had negotiated a deal I was proud of, I knew I was valued. I knew I did good work. Then my manager, who was leaving, told me something I filed away without fully registering: a new boss was coming, and they might not honor the terms we had agreed to.
That was the first signal. Not loud. Just a change in temperature.
Then came the questions from a colleague, wondering why I had these terms. Then came the new boss, wanting to change them. I remember asking one question when I was handed my new schedule: when does this start? Monday, I was told.
My last day was that Friday because I didn’t agree to the new terms.
Change Is Fast. Transformation Is Slow.
Years of small signals led to one fast decision. That is how I have come to understand the difference between change and transformation. Change can happen in an instant. It is the mind making a decision. Transformation takes longer. It asks the body, the routines, and the relationships to catch up to what the mind already knows.
You can change your mind and stop there, keeping it to yourself. Or you can let that change move outward, into your behavior, your commitments, what you say out loud to the people around you. That is where transformation begins. That is when the world has a chance to meet you in it.
On my way home that Friday, a bridge collapsed. I was not on it, and one idea stayed with me: how one moment can look sudden when the cracks had been forming long before the system failed and the structure gave way.
Slow Down Long Enough to Notice
I learned something similar years earlier, as an apprentice in a wilderness therapy program. We were rowing across a bay when seal heads started popping up around us. One of the kids asked why. The captain said it was because we were only now slow enough to notice.
That has stayed with me longer than almost anything else from that season.
What Outgrowing a Role Can Feel Like
If you are sitting with a role you have outgrown, some of this may already sound familiar:
A sense of dread before you have even named why
Avoidance that shows up as procrastination or distraction
A drop in motivation that used to come easily
The looping thought: how do I get out of here
None of these arrive all at once. They are signals, like a change in temperature or the questions that start before the real conversation does.
I do not always catch mine when they first appear. I notice the change in daylight before I notice the change in temperature. I notice the temperature before I notice the leaves turning. By the time I see all three, the season has already been changing for a while.
What signals have you been noticing? And what might they be telling you that you have not fully let yourself hear yet?
