Help With Your Next Step

Making Transitions Easier

Posted by Myrna Blyth on May 22, 2012 7:55 AM

The Transition Network is a nationwide community of women over 50 who are exploring what’s next in their personal and professional lives. Through programs, events and small group gatherings, the organization’s members support each other. The Network first chapter, which was established in the late 1990’s, was in New York. There are now chapters in several cities including Washington DC, San Francisco and Houston. A new chapter just started in Santa Fe. Betsy Werley, the Executive Director, said, “Some groups have more women who have retired. Others have a majority of women who are still in the work force or who still want to work and do something new and different. But the women share a similar history and similar experiences.They have had many opportunities and work has often been central to their lives. And now they feel they are in a stage of transition, and it is great to have a community of women who have the same needs and interests.” Werley thinks “the transition years” are very different than they once were. “There was a time when retirement was seen as a big empty space and there was nothing beyond one’s first career. In those days you imagined you would retire, decompress, maybe do some volunteering and that was it. But now women know they have many productive years beyond their 50s, 60s and even 70s. Nowadays, after your first career, you find you may want to combine paid and unpaid work and ,most important, you always will want to l continue to learn and to grow.”

What are the best ways to make a successful transition?

“Number one is to go out and talk to people who are going through what you are going through,” Werley said. “They can be cheerleaders, helping you move forward. At The Transition Network, groups meet face-to-face to share and encourage each other and that is so helpful. This is a stage of life when work friends tend to fade away, often the parents of your children’s friends become less important Many people think, ‘I used to have so many friends and now I don’t seem to have enough.’ At a time when life is changing, it is really very helpful to have a new network of women who are at one’s same age and going through the same kind of experiences."

Werley also said that there are more and more resources to help one go through transitions and find new directions. “I have seen women who have the good luck to find work that is more fun, more stimulating and more interesting than the work they have done before.” Werley , who had a previous career in finance before joining The Transition Network, said she is one of the lucky ones.

She also said that although transitions can be difficult for both men and women, especially if the person is laid off from a job that was an important part of their lives, women are more able to be open and share their feelings and get encouragement from each other. “I like to think that The Transition Network is the women’s movement brought forward thirty or forty years. We still want to be full participants in our lives and we still want to be there for each other.”

Click here to explore The Transition Network's website.They have also a published a book on how to make a successful transition “Smart Woman Don’t Retire—They Break Free: From Working Full-Time to Living Full-Time.