The key ideas

Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes

William Bridges, 1980

Why do you feel empty after a move or a breakup, even when everything worked out? William Bridges shows that a change and a transition are two different things, and that a transition runs in reverse order: first an ending, then an empty middle, and only then a new beginning. The book explains what happens in each phase and how to go through it without trying to skip ahead.

Who it is for

For anyone starting life over: after a move, a breakup, a loss or a change of job. And for anyone who suddenly finds no joy in what used to bring it.

Every transition begins with an ending. We have to let go of the old thing before we can pick up the new one.

Everything worked out, so why no joy?

Picture Kirill. Six months ago he moved to another city, just as he had long dreamed. The flat is furnished, he found a job, the boxes were unpacked ages ago. On the outside, everything fell into place. But in the evenings Kirill catches himself in a strange emptiness: what used to make him happy no longer moves him, and he has no idea where to go next. He is angry with himself. Everything worked out, so where does this lost feeling come from?

William Bridges knew this state from the inside. In the sixties he taught American literature at Mills College in California. In 1974 he left his job and moved his family to a rural community of psychologists north of San Francisco. His familiar life was over, a new one had not yet taken shape, and his attempts to make sense of that in-between state became the start of his life's work. In 1980 he published a book about how people go through big changes.

Bridges' main idea is simple and surprising. What knocks you off balance is not the change itself but what happens inside you afterwards. He called this inner movement a transition. And he saw three phases in it, which come in an unexpected order: first an end, then an empty gap, and only then a beginning.

This book is for anyone starting life over: after a move, a breakup, a loss or leaving a job. You will learn why the emptiness after a change is not a breakdown but a stage. You will learn what to do while you are in it, and how to tell when something new has already begun.

You can move in a day, but you can't remake yourself in one

Bridges separates two words we usually mix up. A change is an event: a new city, a new position, a divorce, the birth of a child. It has a date. A transition is an inner reorientation that a person goes through so the change can become part of their life. They have to work out all over again who they are now.

Back to Kirill. His change ended the day he got the keys to the flat. His transition had only just begun. Inside, he still lives in the old city, with his old habits and his old picture of himself. That is why everything is fine on the outside, while inside nothing has settled yet.

Bridges stresses that even changes we want set off a transition. A promotion, a wedding, a long-awaited move also take something away: your old rhythm, your old role, your old circle of people. You are surprised by your own sadness, since you wanted this. But a good change brings a loss too, and it is normal to grieve it.

That leads to the main mistake. We expect a new life to arrive together with the change, and when it doesn't, we decide something is wrong with us. For Bridges, nothing is wrong with us. The inner work simply moves more slowly than outer events. And since changes in life will never stop, Bridges says we need to learn to go through them, not wait for calm to arrive.

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About the author

William Bridges (1933–2013) was an American consultant on change. Until 1974 he taught American literature at Mills College. His two main books on transitions have sold more than a million copies between them.

All books by this author: William Bridges

Terms from the book

  • Odysseus
  • Carroll
  • Disenchantment
  • Mills College: A private college in Oakland, California. Bridges taught American literature there until 1974.
  • Transition: Bridges' term for the inner reorientation a person goes through to come to terms with an outer change. In his model it has three parts: an ending, a neutral zone and a new beginning.
  • Gennep: Arnold van Gennep (1873–1957), a French ethnographer and folklorist, author of The Rites of Passage (1909).
  • Rites of passage: Rituals that traditional societies use to mark a person's move into a new place in life: coming of age, marriage, death. Van Gennep saw three stages in them: separation, transition and incorporation.
  • Disengagement: In Bridges' model, the first side of an ending: being cut off from your familiar setting, people and role.
  • Dismantling: In Bridges' model, the second side of an ending: slowly taking apart the old way of life that still stands inside you.
  • Disidentification: In Bridges' model, losing your familiar sense of who you are, when you can no longer describe yourself through your old role. An image of the author's, not a scientific term.
  • Disorientation: Losing your sense of direction and the meaning of your usual plans. For Bridges, the last side of an ending.
  • Neutral zone: Bridges' term for the gap between an ending and a new beginning, when the old is gone and the new has not yet taken shape.
  • Passage journey: Bridges' advice for the neutral zone: a few days in a simple place, far from your everyday life, with almost nothing to do, so you can listen to yourself.
  • Mondi: Mondi Bridges, the author's first wife. She died of cancer in 1997, after thirty-five years of marriage.
  • Susan Bridges: The author's second wife and colleague, a consultant on change. She prepared the anniversary edition of the book and is credited as co-author of its Russian edition.

All terms

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