Same Walk. Different Terrain.

For years, Clay and I have walked our dog about four miles a day. We still do, but these days our route winds through woods and marshland near our new home. Maisy has an entirely new collection of smells to investigate and plenty of critters to chase but, thankfully, not catch. We’ve also discovered a great local coffee shop along the way, which makes the humans pretty happy too.

The walk is familiar. The terrain is completely different.

That feels like a pretty good description of the past five months.

At the end of May, we moved out of the house we’d lived in for more than 20 years and into a house on a wooded lot in a more rural community. At the end of June, Clay retired. Then July and August brought two weeks of sailing our boat across Lake Michigan, two work trips for me, a family trip to Canada, and all the exploration and settling in that come with learning a new community.

Much of it felt like vacation.

It was also a tremendous amount of change packed into a very short period of time.

Even Good Change Requires Capacity

Moving gave me an unexpected opportunity to pressure test much of what I’ve been studying and talking about.

Packing more than two decades of our lives while buying a house, selling a house, making significant financial decisions, and preparing for a major life transition took a toll on both of us. We noticed our emotions were much closer to the surface. Our brains were taxed in ways that made decisions harder. Physical and emotional exhaustion accumulated.

There were far too many takeout meals because, on some evenings after a day filled with far more consequential decisions, deciding what to have for dinner was apparently one decision too many.

Fortunately, Clay and I rarely seemed to hit those moments at the same time. When one of us was running low, the other usually had enough capacity to provide some support. We also became very intentional about making time to decompress and recover.

That wasn’t time taken away from everything that needed to get done. Often, it was what allowed us to come back with enough capacity to make the next decision well.

We also relied on something that has been part of our marriage and family for a long time: we try to approach change as an adventure rather than an ordeal.

We call our vacations adventures because something almost always goes wrong. We’ve learned that we can’t control everything that happens, but we can decide how we’re going to experience it. We look for things to enjoy and reasons to celebrate, even when things don’t go according to our plans.

That approach didn’t make moving less exhausting or the decisions less challenging. But it did keep us from expecting the experience would be easy and then treating every difficult moment as evidence that something was going wrong.

The Structure I Didn’t Know I Had

Once the move was over and Clay retired, I began noticing something else.

I had apparently lost my relationship with the days of the week.

Before retirement, Clay worked primarily from home. He went to his office every morning, and I went to mine. I didn’t realize how much his work schedule provided structure for my own until it disappeared.

During July and August, our weeks and weekends flowed together. We were traveling so much that Monday could come and go without my fully registering that the weekend was over. I figured it was just vacation brain.

Then, in the middle of August, I started focusing more seriously on work again. I would spend an entire day thinking it was Tuesday, then realize it was Wednesday.

How did it get to be Wednesday already?

It felt like I’d somehow lost an entire workday.

What I had actually lost was a structure I hadn’t realized I was using.

That distinction has fascinated me because we tend to pay attention to the obvious demands on our capacity. We notice the big project, the difficult decision, the long hours, or the major life change.

We don’t always notice the structures quietly supporting our capacity until they disappear.

Finding What Works Now

I’m still figuring out what those structures should look like in this new version of our life.

I’ve started putting my workdays on our shared calendar, which has helped create some definition between workdays and the days we’re free to take advantage of Clay’s retirement.

I’ve also discovered something about myself that probably should not have taken me 60 years to figure out: I’m not particularly productive before 10:00 in the morning.

I do much better with a slow breakfast while I read the newspaper, a four-mile walk with Clay and Maisy, and a second cup of coffee. By 10:00, I’m raring to go.

I can skip those things and start working earlier, but I’ve noticed I’m not as energetic or productive when I do. Now I have enough flexibility to pay attention to that information rather than automatically assuming that an earlier start must be more productive.

There are still parts of our new rhythm that feel strange. I can be sitting in my office working while Clay is tackling a project around the house, and part of me thinks I should be out there helping him. He keeps reminding me that he’s happily doing the project precisely so I can focus on my work.

After 35 years of marriage, we’re learning a new way to spend our days together. I love that.

Pay Attention to What the Terrain Requires

One of the things these past five months has reinforced for me is that big changes don’t just change what we’re doing. They change the conditions surrounding everything else we’re doing too.

That matters because when something familiar starts requiring more effort, attention, recovery, or support, our instinct can be to assume we need to work harder or get ourselves back on track.

Sometimes what we need first is to recognize that the terrain has changed.

That’s what Capacity Signals allow us to do. They give us information about what our current circumstances require of us. I’m also becoming increasingly interested in the other side of that equation: paying attention to the conditions that support our capacity and allow us to do our best work.

Five months in, I don’t think we’ve completely found our new rhythm yet. That’s okay. We’re paying attention, making adjustments, and figuring out what works in this version of our life.

Clay and I still walk Maisy four miles a day.

We’re just enjoying the new terrain.

What structure or routine have you discovered was supporting you, only after it changed or disappeared? I’d love to hear what you noticed and what you changed as a result.

Eliz Greene works with leaders and teams to recognize Capacity Signals before they affect decision quality and performance. Explore more ideas and practical resources for recognizing capacity strain, recovering effectively, and sustaining performance under pressure on the Books & Resources page.