We are haunted.

Not by things that go bump in the night, but by the ghosts of people, places, and things that no longer exist, or no longer exist the way they did in the Before Times. A favorite restaurant closed, a previous home razed, streams of work and client relationships vanished. People moved away or just…gone.

We are walking through a landscape that looks intact, but isn’t. In the aftermath of a natural disaster, the wreckage is obvious to the eye, but today, we may have to wander around a bit to sense the true extent of the pandemic’s impact. And that impact may not be fully revealed for years to come.

I read an article recently, “Belonging to a place I’d never been” https://carloarg02.medium.com/belonging-to-a-place-id-never-been-f93453415434 which captures the predicament of our personal and organizational disembodiments. The author talks about how exciting yet challenging it has been to be onboarded to a new company, tackling new work with people he’s never met, who bonded in a building he’s never been in. And how WEIRD that is.

Many of us have a parallel experience: belonging to a place that is now vacant or no longer exists, while working with people who aren’t there in the same way, if at all. The content, focus, and volume of work have shifted substantially. Roles have vaporized, or been recast.

As a result, my coaching clients are embodying personal and professional intentionality. In the Before Times, it was easy (if not downright normal) to be swept along in the flurry of daily activity, with little time to examine whether and how to (re)direct one’s energies. Today, people are thinking about how life was and what about it they’d like to pull forward into their lives today—and what ought to be left behind.

Tellingly, they have all been brought to the same questions:

-Who am I now?

-What do I care most about now?

-Am I spending enough time on what matters, or too much time on what doesn’t?

-Do I stay or leave?

-HOW do I stay or leave?

No doubt we will remember and perhaps miss the way things were, the way WE were. But in the arc of any career, any life, there is a “past you” who morphed into your current self, who will eventually give way to Future You. My clients have kindly allowed me to witness as they wrestle with the critical questions:

-What is the through-line of my life and work?

-What are my bedrock values and beliefs?

-Who am I already becoming?

The answers are the foundations for your next chapter.