When Life Pushes You Off a Cliff

Jim Collins is best known for his research on leadership and business strategy. But his newest book, What to Make of a Life, is different. It's personal. It digs into the cliff moments and major transitions that all of us will face in our lives.

Jewish wisdom teaches that all beginnings are hard. Here are four lessons from Collins's research on how to navigate them.

1. Expect cliffs.

Life is full of unexpected cliffs. Many take you by surprise with how swiftly they change the trajectory of your path: a sudden loss, an unplanned move, a job change, the breakup of a relationship, a natural disaster, or any phase of life coming to an end. Even positive cliffs, like achieving a major educational milestone, accomplishing a lifelong goal, or experiencing a spiritual awakening, can leave you facing the question: What am I supposed to do now?

Collins writes, "The big cliffs of life force you to confront yet again the question of what to make of a life, and you might well answer the question very differently than you ever envisioned before the cliff." In Judaism, every cliff and challenge offers another chance to grow beyond who you were yesterday: "A righteous man falls down seven times and gets up" (Proverbs 24:16).

2. Have patience with the fog.

Collins's research revealed that after a major challenge most people go through a prolonged period of uncertainty and confusion. They do not pick themselves up and figure out how to reconstruct their lives fairly quickly.

He writes, "Even the most successful, capable, energetic, ambitious and otherwise clearheaded and self-directed people can find themselves in a major fog funk." After a major loss or life transition, you may not know what next step to take. Be patient with yourself. Don't expect the fog to clear immediately. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught: "Faith is not certainty; it is the courage to live with uncertainty."

3. You can reinvent yourself.

Not only is reinvention always possible, many people end up reinventing their lives multiple times. "Even if one fulfilling path comes to an end,” Collins writes, “that does not mean the best of life comes to an end. What comes next might be even more fulfilling."

Some people in Collins's research applied strengths they'd already developed when moving to a new stage; others chose to learn an entirely new set of skills. As Ecclesiastes teaches: "To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven." You may choose a career in one season of life that no longer makes sense in the next. Or you may simply change and find that what once felt fulfilling isn't meaningful enough anymore. Whatever the reason, reinvention is always possible, and the next stage may be even better than the last.

4. You don't need an elaborate plan to begin.

When starting something new, you may want to chart the exact path ahead. But most of the high-achievers in Collins's research didn't have elaborate plans or even clearly defined goals when they started: "You don't need a plan. You don't need a goal. You don't need to have the answers for what to do with the rest of your life. You might get a long way down the road before you even know where you are going."

What they did was to consistently use their strengths and follow what they were naturally drawn to, without letting others pull them away from what they excelled at. Jewish thought maintains that the place where your talents and passions meet the world’s needs often points toward your unique mission.

Beginning again is hard at any point in life. What to Make of a Life offers a clear blueprint: discover what you are naturally built to do, trust it, and use those strengths to take the next small step forward. As Rabbi Nachman of Breslov taught: "A person has to begin and begin and keep beginning, sometimes many times in the same day."