There are so many kinds of transitions in our lives. Sometimes we may need to stay in a situation for many years before transition happens. Sometimes it is best to leave, especially if a place or person has become unsafe and toxic to your well being. Whatever the nature of the transition, however easy or difficult, often it can help greatly if we have someone to walk alongside us. A person we trust, or has shown in their own life the capacity to face life’s inevitable transitions. For yes, transitions are definitely inevitable whatever our age or context. And doesn’t change seem to be happening around us at even a faster pace than before?

Having a person to walk with us during life’s transitions can take many forms. Often the metaphor, and even name, of a ‘coach’ is used. In recent decades, having a coach for many areas of life has become more common. You can have a coach of course in a sport, which is the most commonly used way. But you can also have a ‘life coach’, who helps you with goals ranging from health or work or ministry. A form of coaching related to the spiritual life that stretches back to the early Christian church and the Desert Fathers and Mothers is called ‘spiritual direction’. I am myself a trained spiritual director, and walk alongside people in a listening and at times coaching role. It is not so much ‘directing’ but accompanying, with the coaching being an attentive ‘pointing the way’ or ‘holding open a space’ by listening for and encouraging what God may already be doing in someone’s life.

In a recent book of 2022 by Annie Duke titled “Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away‘, the author introduces the concept of having a ‘quitting coach’. This is a person that can help provide you with a ‘fresh perspective’ (pg. 190), giving you alternatives and different ways of thinking. It is not that they would tell you to stop in the situation you are in, but would be someone to give you support as you make that decision yourself. According to Duke, ‘The best quitting coach is a person who loves you enough to look out for your long-term well-being. They are willing to tell you the hard truth even if it means risking hurt feelings in the short term.’ (pg, 197). And getting the most out of a quitting coach ‘requires permission to speak the truth.’

This thought-provoking book deals with the larger question of what keeps us in situations when it seems best for whatever reasons to leave. Certainly there are many times when we need to persevere in tough times or jobs, when not giving up is the best course. But other times, particularly when abuse is going on or there are changes in life context needed either personally or for family, it may be important to be able to quit and transition. For some readers, the very word ‘quit’ is anathema for them, and if that is the case please substitute the word ‘transition’. So in this post it would be the idea of a ‘transition coach’.

But whether you prefer the idea of quitting or transition, the fact remains that often these are some of the most difficult seasons of life that we can go through. There is the fog of confusion, the feeling of an inability of making a change. That is why it can be so important to not try and face it alone: hence the need for a ‘quitting’ or ‘transition’ coach. Here are a few fundamental reasons in my mind that a coach or friend like this can help:

1. This person, as the book mentions, can help offer a fresh perspective to your situation. Having someone to bounce things off of can be important. That is why often it is good to have this coach to be either from outside the organization or context. A few years ago, in my spiritual director role, I did help a friend walk in a process that led them out of the same organization I was also serving in. But I did this again not by ‘directing’ them, but asking questions and listening and providing alternatives.
2. Along with the above, this person can also provide a space of ‘permission’ for you to make a needed change. Sometimes in a time of transition we need someone outside ourselves to say it is ‘ok’ that we make a change. These are times of inner conflict especially if we have been in a situation for several years or even decades. It can be so hard to leave, as our very identity can be ‘fused’ to the group or place or person. Having a ‘quitting coach’ can help us hear a voice outside our own head and heart that strengthens our resolve. In the case above, that is what I also provided the person I was regularly meeting with: a ‘permission’ from someone they trusted.
3. A ‘quitting coach’ can connect you with needed resources to make the change you desire, or to stay in the situation you are in but in a healthier way. This may be by suggesting a counselor of some kind, or giving a lead to a course of studies that will help in the transition, or resources for a sabbatical period. On several occasions, I have served people as a ‘sabbatical coach’, by helping suggest resources, being a sounding board, and giving a wider perspective. A ‘sabbatical coach’ can be similar to a ‘quitting coach’, in that both involve periods of transition in our lives.
4. Perhaps most fundamentally, a ‘quitting coach’ is there to listen to you and affirm that you are a human being that is in process and growing. You don’t need to stay the same internally, and that might also mean you don’t have to stay in the same external situation either. This person may be a close friend you go to coffee with, a pastor or spiritual leader you trust, an older person who has walked the ‘long and winding road’ before. And to quote Lennon/McCartney, that ‘long and winding road’ is one of my favorite metaphors of life. We need people to walk with us on that road, rather than trying to walk it in isolation.

If this post resonates to you, you may want to pursue finding a ‘quitting coach’. Or a ‘transition coach’. But they may not be out there under that name. I don’t know of specific training in these areas separate from other counseling or coaching or spiritual direction roles. You may indeed find someone in a ministry or profession as just mentioned, that has been trained in various ways to help with transition as part of larger areas of skill. But what all of us really need is to find someone who will listen to us, not judge or shut down our journey and feelings. Hopefully you already have someone in your life like that. Don’t be afraid to tell them that you feel like you may need to make a change, to perhaps go in a new direction.

Please don’t keep it inside. Please don’t walk the long and winding road alone.