If you are in the first weeks after a layoff, start with what to do in the first 30 days. If you are planning a move you have not announced, start with the career premortem exercise. This post is about the part neither plan can do for you: staying level through the months when the plan is working slowly.
Why is a career change after 40 so hard to stay steady through?
Because it is long, and the feedback is thin. A search or a move into consulting at this stage usually runs for months. Most days nothing happens. Then something does, good or bad, and it arrives with no warning.
Three things make that harder after 40 than at 28.
- More of your identity is in the title. Twenty years of being the vice president of something leaves a gap when the title goes.
- More people depend on the outcome. The decision is rarely yours alone, which is why how you talk to your family about it matters so much.
- The calendar is suddenly empty. For decades other people filled your day. Now nothing is due unless you make it due.
The result is that each day’s news sets the mood, and the mood sets the work. A good call produces three days of outreach. A silence produces three days of none. Steadiness means breaking that link, so that the work gets done whatever yesterday brought.
What can meditation do during a transition, and what can it not do?
It can train one skill: noticing where your attention has gone and bringing it back. You sit, you follow your breath, your mind runs to the interview on Thursday, you notice and you return. That is one repetition. Ten minutes holds dozens of them.
The skill carries over. The person who has practiced noticing a wandering thought 40 times before breakfast is a little quicker to notice the urge to send a sharp reply, accept a weak offer out of relief or skip the day’s calls after bad news. Noticing creates a gap. In the gap you get to choose.
What it cannot do is just as important.
- It cannot replace a plan, a target list or a weekly number of conversations.
- It cannot create runway or make a hard conversation at home unnecessary.
- It will not make uncertainty feel good. It makes it easier to act well while it feels bad.
I am describing a practice, not a treatment.
What does a practice look like when you are between roles or planning a move?
Small and fixed. Ten minutes, same time, same chair, before you open email or look at your phone.
- Sit upright with your feet on the floor. Set a timer for ten minutes.
- Rest your attention on the feeling of your breath going in and out.
- When you notice you are thinking about something else, say “thinking” to yourself and come back to the breath.
- Repeat until the timer sounds. Then start your day.
That is the whole thing. If sitting still has never worked for you, how to start meditating at 50 if you have never been able to sit still gives a gentler way in.
The fixed time does a second job during a transition. It is the first appointment of the day in a calendar that no longer has any. Keep one commitment to yourself every morning and the second and third get easier to keep.
How do you use it in the moments that matter?
The morning sit is training. The payoff is a one-minute version you use before the moments that carry weight:
- before you reply to a rejection or a low offer
- before a networking call with someone you used to outrank
- before an interview or a pitch
- before a negotiation
- before a conversation at home about money or timing
The one-minute version has three steps. Take three slow breaths. Name what you are feeling in one word, such as tired, angry or hopeful. Then ask one question: what is the next useful thing to do? Most of the time the answer is different from what you were about to do.
I have made more than 130 TV appearances, and the rule that holds in a studio holds here. The few seconds before you speak are worth more than anything you can fix afterward.
How does it fit with the rest of a transition plan?
Think of the plan as what you do and the practice as what keeps you doing it. A workable week during a transition has a few fixed numbers: a set count of outreach messages, a set count of conversations, one piece of visible work such as an article or a talk, and one review on Friday of what moved.
Meditation does not add to that list. It protects it. On the morning after a rejection, the plan says make five calls and the mood says make none. Ten minutes of practice does not change the mood much. It makes it more likely that you notice the mood is deciding for you, and that you make the calls anyway.
It also helps with the opposite problem. A good week invites you to stop prospecting because something is about to close. The same pause lets you notice that, and keep the numbers up until an offer is signed.
What should you expect in the first 30 days?
Less than you hope in the first week, and more than you expect by the fourth.
- Week one. Your mind will wander constantly. That is the exercise working, not failing. Each return is one repetition.
- Weeks two and three. You start to catch a reaction a beat earlier during the day. You may still act on it. Catching it is the progress.
- Week four. Review by behavior, not by feeling. Did you send fewer messages you wished you could take back? Did you keep your outreach numbers on the bad days? Did a hard conversation go better than the last one?
If the answers are mostly yes, keep going. If nothing changed, try moving the sit to a different time of day for two weeks before you decide it is not for you.
When is meditation not enough?
Often. Be honest about which problem you have.
If the plan is not producing conversations, the plan needs work, and no amount of sitting will fix a weak target list. If the question is what you want the next chapter to be, that is a direction problem, and it is the conversation coaching is built for. If you are struggling with sleep, mood or your health for more than a short stretch, talk to your doctor or a licensed professional. A breathing practice can sit alongside that help. It does not replace it.
The longer argument for treating a transition as a deliberate act and not something that happens to you is in There Is No Tomorrow. The prompts for building the target list and the outreach messages are in ChatGPT for Profit, Volumes 1 and 2. For how the same practice applies to judgment calls at work, see whether meditation helps an executive over 40 make better decisions.
Frequently asked questions
- How long should you meditate each day during a job search or career change?
Ten minutes is enough to start, and it is better than a longer session you skip. Keep it at ten for the first 30 days. If the habit holds and you want more, add five minutes. The length matters much less than doing it at the same time every day, because the daily repetition is what builds the skill of noticing and returning.
- Is it better to meditate in the morning or at night during a career transition?
Morning suits most people in a transition, before email and before the day’s news arrives. It sets a first appointment in a calendar that may have none, and it happens before a rejection or a silence can talk you out of it. If mornings are impossible, pick any fixed time and keep it. Consistency matters more than the ideal hour.
- What if sitting quietly makes you think about your worries more?
That is common in the first week. When the usual distractions stop, the thoughts that were already there become easier to hear. The practice is not to push them away. Label it as thinking and return to the breath, as many times as it takes. If sitting consistently leaves you feeling worse, stop and speak with a doctor or a licensed professional. This is general information, not medical advice.
- Can a short meditation help before a job interview?
A one-minute pause can help you arrive ready to listen. Take three slow breaths, name what you are feeling in one word and remind yourself of the one point you most want the interviewer to remember. It will not replace preparation. It helps you use the preparation you have done instead of rushing through it.
- Do you need an app or a teacher to start meditating?
No. A chair, a timer and ten minutes are enough. Apps and teachers can help some people stay consistent, and there is no harm in trying one. The risk is spending the first month choosing a method instead of sitting. Start with the plain version for 30 days, then decide whether you want guidance.
Deciding what your next chapter is for?
Chris works with executives over 40 on the decisions that define a reinvention: what to leave, what to build, and how to make an existing strength visible.
See how coaching works · See Chris’s press page · Read There Is No Tomorrow