Nobody Prepares You for the "In-Between" of a Career Change
Nobody tells you about the middle part. People talk about the decision to leave. They talk about landing the next role. But almost no one talks about the space in between, the weeks or months where you are not who you used to be professionally, and you are not yet who you are becoming.
I have sat with a lot of clients in that exact space. And I want to say clearly: if you are in it right now, there is nothing wrong with you. The in-between is not a failure to launch. It is a real, disorienting part of the process that deserves more honesty than it usually gets.
Why the In-Between of a Career Change Feels So Unsettling
When you leave a role, whether by choice or not, you lose more than a paycheck. You lose a title that answered the question "what do you do." You lose a routine that structured your days. You lose a version of your identity that felt settled, even if it was not fully satisfying.
The in-between strips that away before the next chapter has fully formed. That gap is uncomfortable because humans are wired to want resolution. We want to know how the story ends. Sitting in the unresolved part, without a clear next title to hold onto, can feel like free falling.
What Nobody Tells You About This Stage
Here is what I wish someone had told my clients, and honestly what I wish someone had told me, before they landed in the in-between:
This stage is not wasted time. Even when it does not look productive from the outside, clarity is often being built quietly underneath the surface.
Your worth was never actually tied to your last title. It only felt that way because the title was doing double duty as an identity marker.
Rushing to fill the gap with the first available option often costs more later than sitting with the discomfort now.
Other people's timelines are not your timeline. Watching someone else land a role in three weeks does not mean something is wrong if yours takes three months.
You are allowed to grieve the version of your career you thought you would have, even while you are actively building the next one.
How to Move Through It Without Losing Yourself
The goal in the in-between is not to rush through it as fast as possible. The goal is to move through it without losing your sense of self along the way.
That means giving yourself permission to not have it all figured out yet. It means separating your identity from your job title long before the next title arrives. It means treating this stage as information gathering rather than a countdown clock. What are you learning about what you actually want, now that the old structure is gone?
It also means staying connected to people who remind you who you are outside of your resume. The in-between gets lonelier when you isolate, and clearer when you do not.
The In-Between Is Not the Absence of Progress
If there is one thing I want you to walk away with, it is this. The in-between of a career change is not a gap in your story. It is part of the story. It is where a lot of the real, quiet work of clarity actually happens, even when it does not feel like progress from the inside.
You are not behind. You are in between. Those are two very different things.
This is a topic I love working through with clients and audiences alike, because almost everyone hits an in-between moment at some point in their career. If you or your team could use a real conversation about navigating change well, I would love to help.
You can find more on booking me to speak or coach at worxksolutions.com or drkristytaylorspeaks.com
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