Transition Management With Systems That Stick

Motivation feels like the obvious tool for getting through a divorce, a layoff, burnout, a health wake-up call, or a high conflict co-parenting season, until uncertainty hits and your motivation disappears on schedule. I talk about why that happens and what actually works when life turns unpredictable: transition management, the skill of building structure that holds you up when your feelings can’t. If you’ve been stuck in the “after” of a major disruption for weeks, months, or even years, this is a clear path forward. 

I bring a military leadership lens to everyday life transitions, where professionals don’t rely on hope to perform under pressure, they rely on processes. We translate that into real-world routines, rituals, and repeatable actions that create stability and bring back clear thinking. We also tackle a hard truth: clarity is often the first casualty of chaos, and your mind will try to fill the gaps with worst-case futures. The shift is simple but powerful: focus on what needs to happen this week, not what your whole life must look like years from now. 

Then I walk through the Elevatus C2R2E life transition management framework: Collapse, Confrontation, Realignment, Reclamation, and Elevation. You’ll hear how collapse is data, confrontation is honesty, realignment is intentional rebuilding, reclamation is confidence earned through action, and elevation becomes your new baseline to protect. To make it practical, I share five questions you can use immediately, plus a simple seven-day commitment that helps you regain traction without trying to solve your entire future today. 

If this helped you, subscribe to The Next Baseline, share it with someone navigating a life reset, and leave a quick review so more people can find it. What’s one area of your life that needs stability in the next 90 days?

Transcript

Disruption And The Limits Of Motivation

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hey everyone. So most people I think try to navigate or attempt to navigate a lot of major life transitions with whether that's motivation, hope, or even willpower. And I think my personal opinion is that the problem when it comes down to disruption is that disruption oftentimes creates a level of uncertainty. And that same uncertainty tends to expose the limits of motivation. So whether you're dealing with a challenging divorce, a career change, maybe some professional uh some pressures in your personal in your professional life. Um, perhaps you're facing burnout for those single parents out there. Maybe you're facing a co-parenting conflict, maybe there's a health challenge, or maybe you're experiencing a personal wake-up call that could even, for example, be tied to your health. And so what I want to highlight here is that the path forward is not always going to be found in inspiration and motivation in of itself. Rather, I think it's going to be found through building systems and routines and rituals that are going to be able to help you create the stability that you're needing, in addition to helping you reach and develop the clarity that you're looking for when life throws you something that gets you off kilter, especially when life becomes unpredictable.

Transition Management And The Next Baseline

SPEAKER_00 1:39

So, in this episode, what I want to specifically explore is this idea and this topic of transition management. Through the lens, there's a couple things here I'm going to specifically touch touch on, through the lens of my experience uh with with the military, specifically military leadership, high conflict environments. And then also, I'll be remiss if I didn't touch on this, is the Elevatis C2R2E life transition management framework. In addition to offering some practical ways to move forward when you're facing chaos and looking to embark on a journey toward a new baseline. So, with that, I want to welcome you back to the next baseline if you listened to previous episodes. And if this is your first time listening in, I just want to give you a warm welcome. I'm Danny De Jesus, founder of Elevatus Coaching, and then also the host of this podcast, The Next The Next Baseline Podcast. And what this podcast is about, it's about life resets and then what it takes to specifically reach your next baseline. And when you think of the next baseline, this is what I want you to think about. The question that we ask ourselves, especially in the midst of transition, is should not be how do we get our old life back? But rather, the question now really becomes what do we build moving forward? So for today's episode, I want to specifically talk about something that doesn't always get enough attention, especially when in spaces where people often discuss resilience, and I've already mentioned this already, but it is this idea and concept of transition management. And I think I think it's pretty common knowledge across anybody that you can talk to when it comes down to disruption in life. Disruption can be really, really hard. It can be super, super difficult. And I think most people struggle with change because change is often uncomfortable. However, I think what many people don't realize is that transitions in of themselves, transition is a change. So transition and change and being able to handle that, it's a skill. It's a skill that we need to practice. So some people may move through through some sort of major disruption or transition, and they may eventually find some sort of clarity and stability. But there are others, other people that sometimes remain stuck in the transition itself, and sometimes they they get stuck for years. And so I'm making this episode to really talk to those folks that are finding that maybe you're early on in your transition of whatever that disruption happened happened to be, or maybe you've been stuck, stuck in a transitory state for quite some time and and don't know how to how to get out. So I I made this episode, this conversation with you in mind. You know, there's even things that I'm going through right now personally, um in my personal life, that that has started a new transition even for myself.

The Event Is Fast The Aftermath Isn’t

SPEAKER_00 5:17

So with with that being said, you know, I often think when when it comes to transition, that it's not necessarily the event itself that keeps up that tends to keep us trapped. But rather, I think it's the inability to manage the transition itself. And I think that's an important distinction uh to to make. Because here's the thing, you know, let's look at a couple different variables. A divorce, for example, a divorce to take place, like yeah, the process is is takes takes a while, sometimes it takes months, sometimes a year plus. But here's the thing uh a divorce, when it comes down to the actual transition itself, it may just happen in a single day. All it takes is for the judge to say, hey, you guys are divorced. If you're if you're if you're going through a divorce. Uh another another another variable to look at, look, look at a layoff, layoff from a job. That can happen in a single meeting. That can happen. You come to work today, and then you get called into an office and say, Hey, we're letting you go. Or sometimes say, Hey, don't come to work at all. And then next next day or in later on in the afternoon, you're getting the phone call or an email saying, Hey, we're letting you go. You know, from a health perspective, your health can feel like it changes over overnight when you get that diagnosis just in a single appointment. You're getting that bad news, you're getting that letter, you're getting, you're getting results that say, hey, you need to go get more testing. There's some things that are of concern. It can bring bring a lot of stress here. So here's the thing, you know, the transition itself, from the time something happens, which I like to call that collapsible moment, is the first step of the C2R2E. And I'll get more into that a little bit later. But the transition that follows, from the time that that moment of collapse has occurred, it can last for months and even years. And if you're lucky, only lasts for a couple weeks. But that's usually not the case. And the event can can be so fast. However, as fast as the event could take place, the time that's spent after, there's a lot of time that's spent in the adjustment phase. And I think that's where a lot of us tend to struggle is adjusting to what is the new normal.

Systems And Routines Beat Inspiration

SPEAKER_00 7:55

And I think for me, just from my perspective, one of the biggest mistakes that I think I see people, that I witness people do is trying to navigate transitions using using what I like to call toxic motivation and toxic inspiration. You know, they they may listen to content that's going to tell them, hey, this is the way to get stronger, more toxic positivity. And, you know, maybe they take on new actions to be more disciplined and then more determined. But here's the thing I think motivation is an unreliable uh ways to measure progress. Because here's the thing, motivation is going to come and go, it's going to come in spurts. I think I've often I've often se motivation work best when you're trying something new for the first time and you're super stoked about it. But eventually motivation fades, and then you have to transition into something that's more disciplined and you do it whether you like it or not. So ultimately, motivation is going to come and go. Inspiration is going to come and go. And the truth of the matter is that transitions are going to require something more durable than inspiration and motivation. It's going, when you're dealing with transition, it's going to require a process or something I like to call a system. And I will tell you in over 20 years, since my time on active duty, I've been on active duty since 2005. You know, one of the key things I've learned along the way is that when conditions become uncertain, professionals, especially professionals in the military, we don't rely on feelings. We're going to rely on processes. We're going to rely on procedures, checklists, communication protocols. We're going to rely on data-driven decisions. Um, we're going to rely on frameworks. What we're relying on is our is in our systems to help guide the transition. We're going to look at past things that have worked. We're going to get together minds and we're going to sit around the table and we're going to make some decisions and we're going to make, you know, we're going to move forward. We're going to evaluate if those decisions were successful. We're going to reconvene in a couple months and then readjust. And so I think the military actually understands something that I believe can apply equally to everyday life. And whether that be, you know, even through through pressure, you know, people rarely rarely are going to rise to the level of their intentions. And rather, they're going to fall to the level of their preparation. And so we see this a lot, you know, when when I deal with military things, is that we we we rise to to the level of our training, to, you know, success is going to be predicated on how well were we prepared. Now, does that mean every plan that we put together is going to survive what we call first contact that is going to be successful initially? No, no plan that we ever put together. And this is true for life. No plan that we can ever concoct in our minds from a cognitive perspective is ever going to be successful on the first go. And so that same principle, um, same concept needs to be tied back to everyday life, back to our personal transitions. It's the fact that we can be prepared. You know, we can be prepared for a lot of different things, but at the end of the day, we're going to have to address along the way. Because here's the thing, when life becomes unstable, you know, we're going, we're going to need a solid pathway forward, at least to start. We're going to need repeatable actions. We're going to need repeatable routines. We're going to need structure. We're going to need a way to create predictability while everything else that may be around us may seem chaotic and unpredictable.

Creating Order Out Of Chaos

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Which is really what transition management is. It's it's a way to create structure out of chaos. And all chaos is when you really think about it, it's it may seem like things are all over the place, but that's when when you have chaos in your life, that is life telling you, hey, you're going through a transitory moment. Because once you begin to embrace the fact that you're going through a transition and you can see the chaos for what it is, you can then start to bring order. So really, when you're looking at routine, structure, process, repeatable actions, really you you're you're you're taking that to create order out of chaos. All right. And when when you bring that order in with the intention to create stability for yourself, that is what's going to help you think clearly again. And when you're able to have a sense of clarity, you know, actually, before we even go into that, here's the thing: when you have a bunch of chaos going on in your life, clarity is oftentimes going to be that the first casualty of disruption. Because when people feel overwhelmed, they feel there's a lot of chaos, they're gonna people normally start asking some some major questions and see if you see if you can resonate with some of the questions that we ask here, especially in some of the most chaotic moments of our lives. You know, when something is changing, especially it when it's unexpectedly, I think sometimes we ask ourselves, what what are we supposed to do now at this point? Now that this whatever is happening to me, what am I supposed to do with this? What decisions am I am I needing to make? I don't want to make the wrong decision, which by the way, there's a whole nother conversation when it comes down to decision making because in all honesty, you make the best decisions that you can with the information that you have. And there's always going to be a trade-off with whatever decision you're gonna make that you're gonna figure out five, ten years from now when you're able to look back in in hindsight. Hindsight's always 2020. Sometimes the decisions that we make are a double-edged sword, but we make decisions based off data that we have and information that we have in the present. But, anyways, I digress. Um, you know, we we think about not just what do we do with our life, but what decision I'm gonna make. And that sometimes we we have trouble. We want to fill in gaps and not just think about the here and now in the present, but we want to think about what's gonna happen five years from now. Five years from now is a present state that hasn't even come to pass yet. And it's going to be predicated. The future is going to be predicated based off the decisions that we make today. Then we start to, I think, catastrophize even further when we start to ask, what if everything falls apart? And this is where what if Armageddon happens tomorrow? And and the truth of the matter is, if you're listening to this podcast right now, you're surviving 100% of your worst days, just for perspective. And if you're listening and you're breathing and you're still with us, I just want to tell you there's hope for you just yet. Okay, there's still hope for me. There's a lot of life to be lived. There's a lot of unwritten chapters that need to be written. So I don't want you to think in terms of what if everything in life falls apart. Everything in life is not going to fall apart. There may be parts of your life that are breaking down and they need to be addressed, but everything in life is not going to just fall apart. It may feel that way in the moment. So let's not catastrophize more than than than is required. But overall, all of these questions that we ask, these questions are going to feel important. And these are questions that I think our minds put in our you know at the forefront of our mind because our brain is trying to close gaps in in our thinking. So with that, overall, when it comes down to creating stability out of chaos, I think what I found and what I want to share is that when st stability returns um I think it's important to you know force ability to return.

Stop Trying To Fix Everything

SPEAKER_00 16:37

I think it's important to ask instead of asking what happens five years from now, instead ask what needs to happen this week. Stay in the present. Look short term. I think it's easier to deal with what's going to happen in the next couple days than what's going to happen 12 months from now, two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, because uh, you know, that there's a lot that can happen. How you are today could could be something completely different. Where you are today is gonna be completely different from where you're gonna be at 12 months from now. So start small, keep it small. You know, where do you want to be a week from from today? Okay. So instead of asking how your entire life is gonna get fist fixed, instead, I want you to ask this question what's one area that's uh needs attention, immediate attention right now? What's one area of your life that can use first aid right now? And here's the thing the goal, and this is impossible, you're gonna drive yourself crazy if if if you go beyond this, the goal should not be to solve everything at once. The goal is really to get you back in a place that you're going to regain a sense of self and a sense of traction that that you're you're making steady progress and that progress can eventually snowball. And this is one of the reasons, one of the key reasons why I developed the C2E framework that I designed specifically to help handle, help someone handle and internalize and conceptualize a life transition. Because the framework, C2R2E, it came from my lived experience navigating through major disruption, whether it was challenges in my professional life, in the military, family transitions. I've been through a couple of divorces, child custody type of situations. And so I've had a lot of periods in my life, especially over the last 20 years, where the old structure of my life was no longer working, and I had to create and redefine what my life was going to be moving forward. And that's a process. But with that, let's I'm gonna define for you, I'm gonna explain to you what each aspect of what C2R2E is.

C2R2E Framework Explained

SPEAKER_00 19:01

And what C2R2E is, and we touched already on the first phase, that first phase is gonna be collapse. It's gonna be followed by a phase of confrontation, then realignment, reclamation, and elevation. So with the first stage collapse, collapse, what it is, is this is where your reality breaks and uh breaks. All hell just broke loose. And sometimes it doesn't even need to be all hell broke loose, it could be quiet as well. But this is also where the assumptions that you had, they're they've proved to be false. The routines that you had, they're no longer working for you. The expectations that you had, they're they proved wrong as well. And I think many people spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to avoid this stage. And really, it's the first stage. And here's I think how we have to internalize our individual collapses. And again, I'm not saying something that I'm not going through myself, but when you reach a place of collapse, it is data and it's information. That's it, nothing more, nothing less. Because what it's revealing to you is what's no longer sustainable for you. It's revealing to you what's no longer working and what needs to change. When we can get past that and understand that something needs to change, now we can go into a stage, into the phase of confrontation. And confrontation is where you stop negotiating with the current reality that you're in. You can stop pretending that things are different than they are. You can start gathering facts, you can start identifying patterns, you can begin asking what is actually true at this time, not what you wish were true, and not something that you felt should be true, but what is actually true right now. This is a conversation that you have with yourself and you're being honest with you. Because at the end of the day, you have to be honest with yourself first and foremost, because change only happens when you can be a hundred percent honest with you. And now the third stage, the third stage is realignment. And this is where I think a new system or a new way of life begins to emerge, because this is where we talk about setting new priorities, new boundaries, realignment of values, who you spend your time with, new routines, new rituals, new standards. And I think this is where transmission transition management really begins to start and it also starts to take shape. Because now, you know, you're you go from you know that collapse moment to then being honest through confrontation. And now when you get to realignment, what you're doing is you're building something intentional. It's deliberate and intentional instead of just reacting to it constantly. Your level of awareness has increased. At this stage. And then when we go into the fourth stage is reclamation. And this is where your confidence begins to return. You're able to take on person, take on a new level of personal agency again. Not because your circumstances are perfect, because there's no, there's no circumstance that's ever going to be perfect, no timing that's going to be perfect, but because really, it's because you started proving to yourself that you can handle the situation. And I think confidence is often sometimes misunderstood quite quite often. And I think a lot of people think you need confidence before you start taking action. But in reality, is I think confidence is a result of repeated action because it's going to be something where you repeat action. This is why we have to start small, but start with small actions so that you can build your confidence. And where you're able to trust yourself because you demonstrated the capability to yourself and you have that confidence. There's a lot of things that's where I think your life really begins to transform for the better. And then finally, the like the last phase here is going to be elevation. And elevation is it's it's a continued journey. It's kind of like reaching your black belt in martial arts. You know, you go through all the different belt colors and then you get your black belt, but black belt, your baseline black belt, before you go to start training again for subsequent uh different stripes and degrees and things like that. All the black belt by reaching a black belt, for example, that's just the start of learning. That's just the new baseline that that you have. That's where the the true journey really begins, and your your learning is where it's going to begin. And so I use that analogy the same way, you know. You know, I'll use that analogy here. When it comes down to elevation, elevation is like reaching, is like reaching your black belt in martial arts, for example. It is your new baseline. It is where you're not going to return to an old version of your life or what you had. And it's not an attempt to recreate the past. All the decisions that you made, your past has re-helped you into this moment right now. You went through this whole journey of collapse, confrontation, realignment, reclamation. And now at elevation, this is something that you need to protect, and it takes work. You know, for example, you know, I'm also a martial artist. And so there was a time that I took a period of time off from training to deal with some personal things that I had going on. And I stopped training for about 10 years, and some of my skills atrophied. But by the time I started training again, you know, it took some time to get back. I was never the same because I had, I already had a place of start. I already had a foundation that never left me. But in that same foundation, you know, there were new things I learned along the way. And by the way, I'm a second degree uh black belt in combat hep keto at this point. So, you know, since I started training over the last now, it's been almost two years, it's been it's been a journey. But again, I'm operating from a new baseline. Okay. So all in all, when you think of a baseline, or when I when you think about the process of elevation, this is what I want you to think about. A new baseline is built from what the disruption or the transition in your life has taught you. And it and as you begin to embrace that disruption, you're eventually going to be operating from a stronger operating system, a stronger level, a higher level. You're going to have more clarity that you haven't had before. And then also, most importantly, you're going to have a more intentional direction, but it's going to take time. You know, and an example I'll use here is one area where I think all these principles become very visible across the C2R2E spectrum is in high conflict environments.

High Conflict Clarity And Control

SPEAKER_00 26:24

So whether that's high conflict is happening through an organizational conflict at work, family conflict, um, co-parenting conflict, high conflict situations, typically what they do is they're going to expose weaknesses very quickly. When emotions rise, you know, communication is going to often deteriorate, period blank, full stop. It's hard to communicate when you have a lot of emotions surging through you. You know, people are going to become reactive, defensive, impulsive, and they're going to start making decisions based on those emotions instead of what the objectives that they're trying to reach. And that's something that I continue to struggle today. Sometimes I even struggle that in my own parenting. You know, the clearer you are, the more the greater the chance that you're going to be in a in a winning or winnable position. It doesn't always happen that way. Just because you have clarity doesn't make doesn't mean you're always going to win. It just gives you a sharper edge towards a winning outcome. Um because you know being able to be anchored in facts helps shape the objectives that we're trying to get after. And then also it breeds consistent behavior, like consistent positive behavior, I should say. Now, when we look at from the other perspective, when others become emotionally reactive, clarity is often going to become when you know what I'm trying to say here is when there's a lot of reactivity, clarity is what's going to become that force to bring stability to a situation. And that's true whether in leadership, um, organizational, you know, working, working with colleagues, and it's going to be very true in life transitions. So the more clarity you have, the better you're going to be. It's not going to be 100% all the time, but but if you have a sense of clarity, at least it gives you a sense of of what actions that you need to deliberately take. And however, sometimes that clarity is going to take some time, especially if if the situation that you're trying to manage is going to be very fresh. So, with that, if you're going through a difficult season right now, if you're going through a difficult transition uh right now, what I want to offer you is a simple uh transition management exercise.

Five Questions For 90 Day Stability

SPEAKER_00 29:11

And I'm going to ask you to ask yourself five questions, right? So here's the first one. Identify what has changed in your life and be honest about it. Next, what remains within your control? What can you control? Question three, what system or routines or rituals is currently missing in your life? Question four, what decisions have you been avoiding? And then if you're able to do it, what does stability look like in the next 90 in within the next 90 days for you? So take some time. You know, be honest with yourself. You know, if you need to pause and rewind and go back to those questions, uh by all means do so. But those questions align with C2R2E framework. Okay. So again, real quick, five questions here. What has changed? What remains within your control? What systems, processes, rituals, routines is missing and that you need to explore. What decisions have you been putting off? And what does stability stability look like in the next 90 days for you? What would you like to achieve? And notice that none of those questions are going to require you to solve your entire future today. That's going to be impossible. Don't overwhelm yourself and have some grace for you and compassion. You know, these questions are simply here to help you to identify what your next move is going to be. Because transition management is not about having all the answers. But rather, it's really about creating enough stability and clarity for yourself that you can continue to move forward. And that's something that I think a lot of people need to hear. You don't need perfect clarity. You don't need, you know, complete certainty. You don't need every answer before taking, before deciding to take action. What you do need is enough clarity to make the next best decision with the information that you have, then the next one and the next one after that. And eventually those decisions that you make over time are going to become routines. Those routines are going to become processes. Those processes are going to become systems. Those systems are going to breed stability. And that stability is going to be your next baseline. So before we end today's episode, I always like to conclude with a moment of reflection. And what I want you to what I want to give you to think about is this. Keep it simple. All right. So again, identify one area of your life that currently feels uncertain, needs to potentially change. Maybe there's some chaos in there, just choose one. And then uh commit to an action. Just start with seven days. And then you have five questions that you can use that will help guide your journey. Okay. Most importantly, keep it simple. Okay. You can start with maybe it's communication. Maybe it's a financial from a financial perspective, it's how you handle finances. How you plan daily daily or lack thereof, or maybe you procrastinate. From a health perspective, maybe it has to do with fitness, or maybe a boundary that you need to have with people, or maybe even with yourself. So focus again on one action across the next seven days, across this coming week. Then the next piece, the next piece to consider is then take about 30 days to then evaluate the effectiveness effectiveness of that action and see what happens. If something didn't work as intended, just repeat the exercise. Because you never know what's going to happen until you get started. And that's going to be the big thing is just get started. Because sometimes the hardest part is simply just getting started.

Key Takeaway And Closing

SPEAKER_00 34:05

So with that, here's a key takeaway that I want you to take away from this episode. Motivation and inspiration may be there, present to help you start a transition, but it's going to be actions that are embedded and repeatable and easy to follow routines, rituals, and systems that are going to be able to help you to carry carry you through it. I think that the people who successfully navigate life resets and transitions are not necessarily the most motivated people. But I do think that the qualities that they possess is that they are often the ones who build enough structure for themselves and have clarity and they build stability over the course of time to remain effective, okay? While you know in the midst of uncertainty. So with that, this concludes today's episode. As always, I want to wish you peace, love, joy, and happiness. So until next time on another episode of The Next Baseline.