Changing Jobs? Create Your Personal Transition Plan

The first 90 days on your new job are critical to success. But what about the days between leaving your current job and beginning the new one? How can you proactively plan this time to allow yourself adequate bandwidth to relax, reflect on lessons learned, and bring your best self forward to meet the challenge ahead?

1. Negotiate a break. During salary negotiations, request a break of at least two to three weeks to a month or more. First, determine what you need to do to wrap up your current work, as well as prepare before you can begin the new job. Think broadly and plan ahead, so you’ll walk into the new role feeling invigorated and excited.

2. Renew & re-energize. It’s not selfish to want time off. There’s real value not just to you but to the organization for you to take this break. This might include spending time with family and friends, taking care of overdue medical and dental issues, reading a good book, exercising, or anything else that works for you. Starting a new job is a marathon, so you’ll want to be in a relaxed, clear-thinking state of mind, energized for the journey.

3. Reflect on everything you’ve learned about the organization during your interview process and create an initial plan for building relationships. What impressions do you have so far about the people you’ve met? What have you learned about this organization’s leadership and who are the leaders that you respect most? Whom do you want to meet with during the first 30 days to begin building bridges?

4. Anticipate challenges and plan for them. Begin to develop a hypothesis about what might be most challenging for you and create a preliminary plan for how you’ll address those issues. You may decide to sanity-check and hone this plan with your leader in your initial one-on-ones.

5. Plan for ongoing self-care. Maybe you’ll want to have some non-negotiables in your schedule, like dinner with the family two nights a week at a minimum. You might even think about which chores you can hire out. Think of a couple of strategies that help you manage stress and commit to doing them. This is really important – we can’t do our most productive, best work when we’re over-committed.

6. Schedule time for reflection. Leading CEOs stress the importance of carving out reflection time on a regular basis. Aim for an hour per week. One client schedules an hour on his calendar every Friday morning to stop at a coffee shop. He spends that uninterrupted time going over his goals, reflecting on progress from the last week and identifying priorities for the coming week.

Enjoy the journey and have fun!