On February 27th, I wrapped up my last consulting obligation. On March 9th, I will begin a new role. That leaves ten days in between, and I am trying to use every one of them to prepare myself for my first day on the job.

I want to be upfront about something: being able to take even a brief, purposeful pause between jobs is a privilege. Financial pressure, family obligations, and the simple reality of needing a paycheck mean that most people cannot afford to treat a job transition as anything other than an urgent sprint to the next opportunity. I recognize that. But for those who do have a window, whether it is a weekend, a week, or something longer, I believe that window is worth protecting and designing carefully. My colleague Shawn Boynes, FASAE, CAE, has spoken openly about this, and the Associations Now piece “Permission to Pause” captures his perspective well: executives too often absorb blow after blow without stopping to recalibrate, and the cost of skipping that recovery is far greater than the discomfort of pausing.

So here is how I am approaching my purposeful break.

Reflecting on the ending. Before I could fully commit to what is next, I needed to close my last chapter. My year of consulting gave me something that a traditional role rarely does: exposure to multiple organizations, cultures, and leadership teams in rapid succession. For example, I learned how to engage productively with boards, but not be so personally attached to outcomes that business decisions felt like personal verdicts. I am proud to have reached that viewpoint, and I wanted to sit with that idea and other lessons learned before moving on rather than carry them half-processed into a new environment.

Living through the messy middle. There is an uncomfortable stretch between the relief of finishing something and the excitement of starting something new. I think of it as the messy middle, the period where neither identity quite fits. Rather than keep up the fast pace of work, I went away. I took time with my spouse and friends with no work email hovering in the background. Before I left, I handled the administrative groundwork for my new role. I arranged my equipment delivery, did my onboarding paperwork, reached out to future colleagues on LinkedIn to introduce myself and share my excitement about joining the organization, and drafted my introductory remarks. (I even drafted this blog post!) With those things in place, I could actually disconnect.

Preparing the launch. Now that I am back, I have shifted into a different mode. Not work mode, but preparation mode. I am cleaning up my workspace and setting up my equipment. I think of it the way most of us remember the night before the first day of school: laying out your backpack, choosing your outfit, setting the alarm with a small sense of ceremony. It sounds simple, but there is something psychologically meaningful about treating your start as worthy of preparation rather than just stumbling into it.

The goal of all of this was never to arrive rested in some vague, aspirational sense. It was to arrive whole, having honored the chapter that closed, having genuinely exhaled during the break, and having created the conditions to give my new professional home my best self from day one. I will let you know how Monday goes!