Most everyone has experienced life’s unwelcome curve balls.  Life is humming along, going pretty well, and then BAM, something unexpected and unwanted freezes you in your tracks.  What few people talk about is the critical need to pivot after being thrown one of those curve balls and how challenging pivoting can be.  Sometimes pivots are essential in order to keep going, sometimes pivots can surprisingly lead to a better place.  Sadly, sometimes the pivot does not happen or does not go well and ends in derailment, struggle, or destruction.

For the past 12 years my professional life has been coaching innovation teams at a big consumer products company.  I teach these teams to expect pivots, to be able to identify when it’s necessary to pivot and how to pivot towards success.  As I have developed my craft in the innovation world, I have learned to love the pivot when it comes to innovating in my professional life.  I am captivated by stories of companies and products that started as something completely different but pivoted into something much more successful.  I find pivoting exciting and thrilling…professionally.

Personally though, it’s a completely different story.  I hate pivots in my personal life and try to avoid them at all costs.

Clearly the biggest pivot in my personal life was after the horrible curve ball of my husband dying unexpectedly at the age of 44. I had to pivot from being a full-time working co-parent to a full-time working solo mom.  I had to pivot from being married and in a relationship with my husband for 16 years to suddenly being a widow.  I had to pivot from waking up every morning next to my husband to waking up alone.  I had to pivot from navigating life with my husband and best friend to navigating life all alone.  I had to pivot from raising two young boys with their Dad to raising two young boys by myself.

Pivoting after my husband died was a painful transformation that took years.  I was only able to do it by first trying to stabilize the things that were in rubble after my husband’s death and then holding constant as many things as I was able to control.  I held constant my location, my job, my friends (mostly), and our routine once it was established.  My sons’ and my lives were planned days, weeks, and months in advance.  One little change to those plans would send me into a tailspin.  I was always terrified that curve balls and pivots would lead to chaos or struggle and I already had enough chaos and struggle on a day-to-day basis.  I had more hardship than I could handle.  I was secretly barely holding on.  I could not take even the smallest pivot.  For years, I avoided curve balls and pivots like the plague.

During the ten years that my husband has been gone, curve balls and pivots have occurred despite my attempt to dodge them.  Some big, some small.  The biggest pivot was after my Mom’s unexpected death in 2019.  Losing my Mom was a curve ball that I was just as unprepared for as losing my husband.  I am still trying to figure out how to pivot to a life without my Mom and it has been very, very difficult.

Seven weeks ago, life threw me the curve ball that I have been afraid of since the day my husband died.  My job was eliminated.  I have been at this company for 12 years and have tried desperately to keep it constant and stable for the 10.5 years that my husband has been gone.  Losing my job is the most terrifying curve ball that I have ever been thrown other than losing my husband and Mom.  Only a widow or widower with minor children can understand how scary this curve ball is.  I am the only provider in this house.  I am the only paycheck.  There is no other parent or ex-spouse to step up.  I either figure out how to pivot or we destruct.

I am scared.  Really, really scared.

But…

Could this be like the innovation pivots that I find so thrilling when I coach teams?  Could this be like the innovation stories of other brands and companies that I find so fascinating?  Should I dare to hope that this could be my greatest professional pivot?  In March of 2022, on the ten year anniversary of my husband’s death, I wrote in my blog “I am bitterly disappointed in my career after becoming a widow but will never regret the choices I made”.  Could fate now be forcing me to pivot into something that will end my disappointment?  Could the universe be telling me it’s time for me to thrive now that my kids are older and now that we are more stable emotionally?  Could the universe be nudging me to take a chance and try something that I have been too afraid to try?  Could God be telling me it’s time to professionally pivot?

I’m still scared.  There are two boys who rely solely on me to eat, sleep with a roof over their head, and have the ability to see a doctor when they are ill or injured.  But like the curve ball of my husband’s death, the job elimination curveball pitch was thrown.  I could not stop either curve ball.  So once again, I have two choices:  pivot or accept defeat.

I have never gone down without a fight.  It’s time to pivot.