Not Every Season Is Harvest: How to Navigate a Major Life Transition

August is a season of change for many families. That's why this month, I'm welcoming Alicia Hullinger, Ph.D. as a guest blogger. She's offering her expertise on moving through transitions and giving us powerful questions to ask ourselves as life changes.

There are seasons in life when everything looks productive from the outside. The promotion arrives, the business launches, the move happens, the plan comes together, and the next milestone lands right on schedule. These are the harvest seasons, and we know how to celebrate them because the evidence is visible. Something has bloomed. Something can be announced, measured, shared, or placed neatly into the story we tell about our lives.

But not every season is harvest.

Some seasons are quieter, less certain, and far less impressive from the outside. In these seasons, something is changing beneath the surface, but you cannot yet fully name what it is. You may recognize this kind of season if you find yourself asking:

• What no longer fits?

• Why does the life I worked so hard to build feel different now?

• Why do I feel restless when nothing is technically wrong?

• How am I supposed to move forward without a clear plan?

These questions can feel disorienting, especially for people who are used to being capable and high-functioning. Then one day something begins to shift. The old rhythm feels too tight, the goals that once motivated you no longer carry the same charge, and the identity that helped you get here may not be the identity that can carry you into what comes next.

If this sounds familiar, you are in good company. Author Bruce Feiler, whose Life Story Project analyzed hundreds of American life stories, found that we experience a significant life disruptor every 12 to 18 months, and that three to five times in our lives one grows into a full lifequake that takes an average of five years to move through. We spend much of adulthood in transition, yet almost no one teaches us how to be in one.

This does not mean you are failing. It may mean you are in a threshold season.

The Hidden Work of a Major Life Transition

A threshold is the space between what has been and what has not yet fully emerged. It is not quite an ending and not quite a beginning, and that in-between can be deeply uncomfortable. Most of us are taught to move quickly through discomfort, so we reach for a plan, a timeline, a decision, or a spreadsheet, preferably by Tuesday.

Meaningful transitions rarely cooperate with that timeline. Often the first task is not to rush into action but to slow down long enough to understand what is actually changing. That can feel counterintuitive during major life shifts such as a career change, retirement, selling a business, divorce, caregiving, an empty nest, relocation, grief, or burnout.

These transitions bring practical questions, and those questions matter:

• How much money do I need?

• What can I afford?

• What decisions need to be made, and by when?

• What support do I need around me?

These financial questions are real. The American Psychological Association has found that money consistently ranks among the most significant sources of stress for adults, so unresolved financial questions can quietly amplify every other uncertainty.

But alongside the practical questions come identity questions that are just as real:

• Who am I now?

• What matters in this season?

• What am I ready to stop carrying?

• What do I want to protect, reclaim, or create?

In the transition work I lead, I have watched what happens when people skip the identity questions and jump straight to the practical ones. They often make decisions that look good on paper but do not fit the person they are becoming. Then they spend the next chapter quietly renegotiating choices that never fully belonged to them in the first place.

The practical work and the inner work are not competitors. They are partners, and transitions go better when both get a seat at the table.

The Power of Reflection During a Season of Change: Why the Soil Matters

In harvest season, the results are visible. In soil season, the work is mostly invisible, and that does not make it less important. Soil is where roots deepen, where old material breaks down and becomes nourishment, and where the conditions are created for what will eventually grow.

The research is encouraging for anyone who worries that slowing down means falling behind. Researchers from Harvard Business School and HEC Paris found that employees who spent just fifteen minutes at the end of each day reflecting in writing performed 23 percent better than colleagues who spent that time working. Reflection is not the opposite of productivity. It is one of its quietest engines.

A soil season may look like rest, reflection, honest conversations, long walks, clearing clutter, reviewing your finances, reconnecting with old parts of yourself, or finally admitting what is no longer true. It may not look productive in the traditional sense, but it is productive in a deeper one.

Before we can create a meaningful next chapter, we usually need to create the conditions that allow it to grow.

Three Questions for a Threshold Season of Change

When you find yourself in transition, three simple questions can help you begin.

1. What am I ready to leave behind? This might be an outdated role, an old story about success, a habit of over-functioning, or a version of yourself that had to survive but no longer needs to lead. Leaving something behind does not mean rejecting the past. It means honoring what served its purpose and recognizing what no longer needs to come with you.

   
   

2. What do I want to carry forward? Not everything from the previous chapter needs to be released. Wisdom, relationships, skills, values, hard-won resilience, humor, spiritual grounding, and financial clarity may all be worth keeping. What you have already lived through often becomes part of the resource base for what comes next.

   
   

3. What do I want to create anew? This is where imagination returns, and I do not mean fantasy or denial. Imagination is the ability to relate to possibility before it is fully visible. You may not know the whole next chapter yet, and that is fine. You can begin by asking what kind of life, work, rhythm, contribution, or relationship with money would feel more aligned with who you are becoming. The answer usually starts small: one conversation, one boundary, one financial review, one hour of protected time, one brave next step.

Practical Ways to Tend the Soil During a Major Life Transition

If you are in a threshold season, a few practices can support you.

Pause before forcing clarity. Give yourself permission to notice what is shifting before demanding a final answer.

Name what no longer fits. Naming has measurable power. In a well-known study of professionals navigating job loss, psychologist James Pennebaker and colleagues found that those who wrote honestly about their thoughts and feelings around the transition found new employment significantly faster than those who wrote about neutral topics or not at all.

Return to your body. Walk, breathe, cook, stretch, garden, sing, or do anything that helps you feel present rather than trapped in future scenarios.

Review your practical foundations. Transitions are easier to navigate when you understand your financial reality, your capacity, your commitments, and the support systems available to you.

Ask better questions. Instead of only asking, “What should I do next?” try asking, “What is this season asking me to understand?”

Seek wise support. A financial planner, coach, therapist, mentor, trusted friend, or reflective group can help you see clearly when you are too close to your own life to make sense of it alone.

You Are Not Behind: You Are in Transition

If your next chapter is not yet clear, it is tempting to believe you are behind everyone whose harvest is visible. But you are not behind. You may simply be in the soil, and the soil is not empty. It is alive.

Decades of research by Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck points to the same truth from another angle. People who view challenges and setbacks as opportunities  to develop, rather than as verdicts on fixed abilities, show greater resilience and learn more deeply from difficult experiences. A threshold season is not evidence that something has gone wrong. It is one of the conditions under which people grow.

Not every season is harvest. Some seasons are for tending the conditions that make the next harvest possible, and that work matters just as much.

A Reflection to Take with You During a Season of Change

Set aside ten quiet minutes and write your responses to these three questions:

• What am I ready to leave behind?

• What do I want to carry forward?

• What do I want to create anew?

Let the answers be honest before they are polished.

And if you are navigating a meaningful transition and would like a thinking partner for this season, I welcome you to schedule a Discovery Call through my website. It is a conversation, not a commitment, and sometimes one good conversation is exactly how a new season begins.

About Alicia Hullinger, Ph.D.

Alicia Hullinger, Ph.D. is a systems futurist, cultural sociologist, and leadership guide who helps people and organizations make sense of complexity, navigate meaningful transitions, and create what comes next. She is the former Executive Director of the International Coaching Federation’s Thought Leadership Institute, where she led global research and strategic foresight initiatives on the future of coaching, leadership, and human development.

Through her work on Conditions for Growth, Alicia integrates futures thinking, strategic sensemaking, human development, and creative practice to support people in seasons of change. She is also the creator of The Threshold, a guided small-group experience for people navigating transition, uncertainty, identity shift, or a next-chapter decision.

Learn more or schedule a Discovery Call at aliciahullinger.com.