Summer shifts.

The summer is here and for many of us, it has been time for a break.

Perhaps even the time for a shift.

The summer break is often a great time to slow down a bit and reflect on life. On where we are, and where we are going.

Am I really the person, I want to be? Am I doing what I want to do? And am I in control of my own life?

I’ve had the privilege of partnering with some great people over the years―so full of potential―coaching them and helping them navigate through some critical life and career transitions and changes happening. I call it a “privilege” because, witnessing someone’s shift to becoming who and what they want, finding their purpose and meaning and reaching for their true potential in life is very personal and yes… a true privilege.

“When shifts and transitions in life shake you to the core, see that as a sign of greatness that’s about to occur.” – Anonymous

In previous blog articles, I have written about the differences between the terms change and transition.

How we during life face many external circumstances, events or situations (changes) like critical illness, being involved in a car crash, a change of a job, being fired, or even saying our last goodbye to a family member who passed away[1].

Transitions―the human side of change―are the psychological reorientations and shifts that we go through when we internalise and come to terms with what a change brings in terms of a new reality, identity, or values even[1].

An example could be a leader who faces an external circumstance, a promotion at work, to become a first-time manager, a leader of others. This new manager will undergo a leadership role transition, where they will need to learn new leadership skills or competencies and unlearn old ones, as well as learn different new ways of spending their time and focusing on what brings the most value in the role and to the organisation.

In this blog article, I will discuss some of my insights as a coach, working with several clients on navigating life transitions as inspiration (important: client confidentiality is protected).

Social identities.

Often when I begin a conversation with someone, I don’t know at a dinner party, at a conference, or at a social event, the first thing people ask me is “what do you do?”.

They are referring to what my job is, my role and employment.

I do the same sometimes.

So, instead of asking “who are you?”, we ask “what do you do?”.

Can you notice the difference?

It relates well to transitions, e.g. when you lose your job (what you do), you might lose your social identity, which you attached to the job and context you were in. What you valued. You will be ending your previous self-understanding of having that specific role and responsibility. And you will go through a time to reorient, and needing to discover your potentially new identity to begin something new.

We all have different social identities (how you define or categorise yourself as a member of groups).

And what often happens when our lives are too connected to a single social identity, e.g. our job role, we may loose the direction in our life, if we lose that specific job. We lose our identity.

If we turn back to the questions from before, one of the key questions that can help us during transitions is therefore “who am I?”. It is also a much more interesting question to ask someone we want to get to know at different social events.

When we face transitions in life―major shifts we have to psychologically come to terms with―I often experience how people become worried about what it all means, a sense of loss of identity or perception of oneself.

They loose their sense of “who am I?”

It can be useful to consider this question and life transitions through the lens of self-discrepancy theory, which was developed by Edward Tory Higgins[2].

In his Psychological Review article, Edward Tory Higgins found that individuals compare their ‘actual’ self to different internal standards called ‘ideal’ self and ‘ought’ self[2]. So, when you have discrepancies between your actual and ideal self-states (idealised beliefs of your own or others’ hopes, wishes, or aspirations for you based on experiences in life) it leads to emotions like dissapointment, dissatisfaction, and even sadness[2]. Inconsistencies between your actual and ought to self-states (who you or others’ believe you should be or become when it comes to duties, responsibilities, or obligations) is associated with emotional discomfort like fear, threat, and restlessness[2].

So, overall, self-discrepancy is if you have gaps between two of these self-states, which leads to negative emotions[2].

I often come across such discrepancies in conversations with people. And these discrepancies may even be reinforced when we undergo different life transitions.

The self-discrepancy theory can help you reflect on the question “who am I?” and categorize your social identities.

Are there any discrepancies between your self-states and the narratives about yourself. Becoming aware of these and exploring them can help in overcoming often challenging transitions.

When facing changes, we may worry about what it’ll all mean to me. Can I identify with the new situation?

The key word here is worries. I experience that a lot, when going through life transitions, many of us worry about the future and how it will all impact us. We are concerned about the consequences for us.

During the summer, I read the great book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind from 2015 by Yuval Noah Harari[3]. It lays out the amazing history of human evolution (homo sapiens) through The Cognitive Revolution (~70,000 years ago), The Agricultural Revolution (~12,000 years ago), The Scientific Revolution (~500 years ago), and The Industrial Revolution (~200 years ago).

Harari (2015) describes how we humans went from hunter-gatherer lifestyles and a day-to-day focus on getting something to eat from plants and animals[3]. Surviving in nature was a big part of the life-style. However, their lifestyle was more worry-free, because they focused on the present moment, ignoring the future, compared to when we humans transitioned to settled agriculture[3]. Humans began growing wheat and domesticated plants and animals, leading to worrying about the long-term future, annual agricultural cycles of crops, and how to have food enough for next year[3].

Historically, the agricultural work was very demanding and the mental transition and focus on working hard became the new future[3]. According to Harari (2015), this layed the foundation for the burnout, stress, and worrysome societies we have today[3].

And perhaps this relates to why life transitions can become challenging because we concern too much about the future instead of spending the time in the present moment and on what we can control. The hunter-gatherers showed us how to do it as we can only do something in the present moment.

Hence, if we compare our actual self with the ideal or ought to self-states, then focus on small changes you can do day-to-day that will get you there. Or if your social identities are aligned to who you are and want to be.

Now, let’s consider how this can all be related to happiness.

What determines your happiness?

During my training to become a Hintsa Performance Certified Coach, I’ve been introduced to some exciting research articles and background on happiness (well-being).

In their research article Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change, Lyubomirsky et al. (2005) found that there are several factors that contribute to sustainable happiness (see Figure 1)[4]:

  • Genetics (or the set point) accounts for ~50% of our happiness
  • Circumstances (external life events and environment) accounts for ~10% of our happiness (e.g. childhood trauma, wealth, health, relationships, job change etc.)
  • Intentional activities (yourself and own behavioral and mental actions) accounts for ~40% of our happiness
Figure 1: Inspired by Lyubomirsky et al. (2005)[4].

Later research has found that our own intentional activities or our behavioral and mental actions and effort don’t account for as much as ~40% of happiness, but they still seem to highly influence well-being[5].

In other words, when we face changes (external circumstances happening), we have a big influence through our behaviors and mental models on our well-being.

So, in coaching conversations, we often explore these behavioral patterns, assumptions, and beliefs to build self-awareness. We can then connect it to any self-state discrepancies and social identities.

It may be helpful in such conversations to map your different social identities, e.g. parent, academic researcher, leader etc. and then connect these to skill sets of these identities.

Our social identities and perception of self-states affect our life transitions and well-being.

P.S. Who are you? What are your social identities? Any self-state discrepancies? Share your thoughts below.

References.
[1]Bridges, W. (1988) Bridges Transition Model. Bay Area: William Bridges Associates. Available at: Bridges Transition Model (wmbridges.com) (Accessed 25 December 2022).
[2]Higgins, E. T. (1987) Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect, Psychological Review, 94(3), pp. 319–340. Available at: APA PsychNet (psychnet.apa.org). (Accessed 15 July 2025).
[3]Harari, Y. N. (2015) Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. 3rd edn. Denmark: Lindhardt and Ringhof, pp.109-110.
[4]Lyubomirsky, S., Sheldon, K. M. and Schkade, D. (2005) Pursuing Happiness: The Architecture of Sustainable Change, Review of General Psychology, 9(2), pp. 111–131. Available at: Sage Journals (sagepub.com). (Accessed 15 July 2025).
[5]Sheldon, K. M. and Lyubomirsky, S. (2019) Revisiting the Sustainable Happiness Model and Pie Chart: Can Happiness Be Successfully Pursued? The Journal of Positive Psychology, 16(2), pp. 145–154. Available at: Taylor & Francis Online (tanfonline.com). (Accessed 15 July 2025).