Why Doesn't Change Happen in a Straight Line? Understanding Life Transitions.

Sometimes we begin moving before we fully understand why.

Lately, I have found myself feeling a little in flux.

Over the past few months, I have started several projects with good intentions and then gradually lost momentum. A website update remains unfinished. The decluttering I began at home sits somewhere between started and completed. Various systems and ideas exist in half-completed forms. Even the rhythm of writing and publishing a weekly blog, something I had maintained for several months, has slipped away recently.

Part of me finds this frustrating because I like the idea of progress. I like things to feel purposeful and intentional. I find comfort in rhythm, routine and the sense that I am moving steadily towards something. Instead, I have found myself stopping and starting, moving forwards and then drifting away again.

And yet, alongside all of this, I have found myself repeatedly drawn towards something else.

Walking.

Not with any particular destination in mind, and certainly not with the consistency I imagine a proper walking habit should involve. Some weeks I have gone out regularly. Other weeks, not at all. Yet the pull remains.

Recently, I came across the work of Annabel Streets, who writes beautifully about the relationship between walking and our emotional lives. Something about her writing resonated with me and made me think about an earlier blog I wrote about the pull I sometimes feel towards the coast.

The more I reflected on this, the more I wondered whether many of us experience something similar during periods of change. A pull towards something that does not yet make complete sense, but continues to call us back.

Why Do Life Transitions Rarely Follow a Straight Path?

We often imagine change as a straightforward process.

Something happens. We recognise that things cannot continue as they are. We make a decision, take action and gradually begin moving towards something new. There is an assumption that progress will feel visible and that clarity will increase as we go.

But many of life's most significant transitions do not unfold in this way.

When I think about the sea, what strikes me is that its movement is rarely straightforward. Standing on the shoreline, it can appear as though the tide is either advancing or retreating. But when you look more closely, the movement is far more complicated than that. Waves move forwards and backwards. Water rushes in and then pulls away again. At times, it can seem as though very little is happening at all.

And yet the tide is still changing.

Perhaps personal change is often similar.

From the inside, it can feel messy and inconsistent. We move towards something and then away from it. We gain clarity and then lose it. We feel hopeful one week and uncertain the next. What looked like progress suddenly feels like hesitation. What felt certain begins to feel less clear.

When we are in the middle of a transition, change rarely feels like a straight road leading neatly from one place to another.

Why Do We Feel Frustrated When Progress Is Slow?

Part of the difficulty is that many of us expect ourselves to know where we are heading.

We want certainty. We want reassurance that we are moving in the right direction. We want evidence that the choices we are making will eventually lead somewhere meaningful.

When that certainty is absent, it can be easy to assume that we are stuck.

We may become frustrated with ourselves for changing our minds, losing momentum or failing to follow through. We may look at other people and imagine that they have a clearer sense of direction than we do. We may wonder why progress feels slower and more complicated than we expected.

Yet perhaps the problem is not that we are failing to move forwards.

Perhaps the problem is that we are expecting change to look far more linear than it actually is.

Many transitions involve letting go of something before we fully understand what will replace it. There is often a period where the old way of being no longer feels right, but the new way has not

yet emerged.

That space can feel deeply uncomfortable.

What Does This Look Like During a Life Transition?

I see this often in the people I work with.

For someone navigating the end of a relationship, there may be a clear sense that the relationship has run its course whilst having very little idea what life afterwards will look like. There can be moments of certainty followed by moments of grief, relief sitting alongside doubt.

For someone living with childlessness, there may be an ongoing process of adjusting to a reality that was never expected. There can be periods where life feels steady and meaningful, followed by moments where feelings of loss, comparison or disconnection resurface unexpectedly.

For someone approaching retirement or adjusting to redundancy, there may be excitement about leaving one chapter behind whilst simultaneously feeling uncertain about who they are without the structure that work once provided.

For someone living with chronic illness, there can be a continual negotiation between accepting limitations and longing for the life that existed before those limitations arrived.

And for others, there is no obvious event at all. Just a growing sense that something no longer fits. A feeling of restlessness, disconnection or uncertainty that is difficult to explain. Life continues much as it always has, yet something internally feels different.

Although the circumstances vary, the experience often feels remarkably similar.

People find themselves in an in-between place. No longer where they were, but not yet fully settled into what comes next.

Why Are We Drawn Towards Something New During Times of Change?

One of the things that interests me most about these periods is that clarity does not always arrive first.

Often, what comes first is a pull.

For me recently, that has looked like walking.

Not because I have consciously decided that walking is the answer to anything, but because it is something I keep finding myself returning to. Even when other projects have lost momentum, the pull towards walking remains.

I wonder whether many of us experience something similar during periods of transition.

Often there is a growing curiosity about something that seems unrelated to the problem we are trying to solve, particularly during periods when we feel disconnected from ourselves. It may be a creative hobby, a desire to spend more time outdoors, a wish to work differently, a longing for a slower pace of life, or a feeling that counselling might be helpful.

These things do not always arrive with an explanation attached to them.

They can simply feel significant in a way that is difficult to articulate.

Sometimes we begin moving towards something long before we understand why it matters.

How Counselling Can Help During Times of Transition

Many people come to counselling hoping to find answers.

Whilst counselling can certainly help with clarity, it can also offer something else.

It can provide space to pause and pay attention to what is happening beneath the surface, particularly when you find yourself in an in-between place. To explore what no longer feels right, what is beginning to emerge, and what keeps drawing your attention.

Rather than forcing certainty before it arrives, counselling can help you develop a deeper understanding of where you are and what you need. It can offer a space to make sense of the contradictions, frustrations and uncertainties that often accompany periods of change.

Sometimes that understanding develops gradually.

Like the tide, change does not always move in a straight line.

A Closing Reflection

As I write this, the website is still only partly updated. The decluttering remains unfinished. My walking routine is far from consistent.

Part of me still wishes change would move in a straight line.

But perhaps there is something to be learned from the tide.

Movement is not always obvious when we are standing in the middle of it. Sometimes it looks like stopping and starting. Sometimes it looks like circling back. Sometimes it looks like being drawn towards something before we fully understand why.

Perhaps the most important thing is not how quickly we are moving, but whether we are paying attention to what keeps calling us forwards.

If You Would Like to Talk

If you are navigating a life transition and finding yourself in an in-between place, I offer counselling in person in Ascot, Berkshire, as well as online and by telephone across the UK.

You are welcome to get in touch for a free 15 minute consultation.

About the author

Samantha Cooke is a counsellor based in Ascot, Berkshire, specialising in support for life transitions and unexpected change. She works with adults navigating experiences such as relationship endings, childlessness, chronic illness, retirement or redundancy, midlife shifts and the in-between periods where life no longer feels familiar.

Samantha offers warm, steady, relational counselling in person in Ascot and online and by telephone across the UK, helping clients explore their emotions, regain clarity and reconnect with a sense of direction and self-trust.

You can contact Samantha here: CONTACT | Samantha Cooke