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# Still in the Ending: Working through a change I didn’t choose
- URL: https://watsonleadershipgroup.com/still-in-the-ending/
- Published: 2026-10-27T22:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-28T19:39:15.000Z
- Description: My organization is changing, and I’m not comfortable with all of it. Using William Bridges’ model, I’m working through what’s ending for me and learning that accepting a change doesn’t mean agreeing with it.
- Author: Brant
- Tags: Change, Transitions, Self-Leadership, Acceptance, William-Bridges

I’ve coached plenty of leaders through change. I’ve drawn Bridges’ three phases on whiteboards and asked other people what they’re letting go of. Knowing the model and living inside it turn out to be very different experiences.

My organization is changing right now, and I’m not comfortable with all of it. I won’t go into the details, partly because they don’t matter much to what I’m working out and partly because the details aren’t the hard part. William Bridges opens *Managing Transitions* with the line “It isn’t the changes that do you in, it’s the transitions.” The change is what happens around me. The transition is what happens inside me, and I’m still in the middle of it.

Bridges says every transition starts with an ending. If I’m honest, that’s where I am. I haven’t reached the neutral zone yet, because I’m still holding on to how things were.

So what is ending? When I sit with the question, I find more than I expected. A way of working that I built and trusted is going away. Some of how I saw myself at work was tied to that way of working, so a piece of my identity is going with it. What I’ll miss most is having room to give my best time and thinking to innovation. That was where I did my best work and felt most like myself, and I don’t know yet what takes its place.

For a while I treated acceptance as if it meant agreement. If I accepted the change, I thought, I was saying it was the right call. Since I don’t believe all of it is, I kept resisting, and the resisting kept me stuck. I’m starting to see acceptance differently. Accepting the change means admitting it is real and that it is happening. It says nothing about whether I like it. I can accept that something has ended and still grieve it. That distinction gives me some of my energy back.

I’m trying to approach my own transition the way I’d ask a coachee to approach theirs, with curiosity instead of judgment. What is my discomfort telling me about what I value? Which parts of the old way of working were really about the structure, and which were about me? The things I care about most, like helping people find courage and making room for new ideas, didn’t come from the old structure. That makes me think they can survive this, even if they have to find a different outlet.

Bridges is clear that you can’t skip the ending. So I’m going to let this one be an ending for a while. I’ll keep naming what I’m losing, and I’ll let it go when I’m ready rather than when the calendar says I should be.

**Your Spark:** Think of a change you’re living through right now. Underneath the change itself, what is actually ending for you? What would it look like to accept that ending without having to agree with it?