Ok Now What? When a door closes and the next one hasn’t revealed itself yet

Damian Hughes said my book Another Door Opens was just what you need when you find yourself thinking ‘Now What?’. And judging by the messages in my inbox there are quite a few people out there in that space right now.

So let’s ease into the Now What Next Steps slowly…

There’s a moment where something has clearly finished - a job, a role, a relationship, a version of you - but you aren’t particularly sure what is beginning, and you find yourself standing there thinking: Ok. Now what?

This is the liminal space. Like you are in suspense. The uncomfortable pause after the door has closed, before another one opens. It can feel exposing, unsettling, and deeply personal and confusing. You might be grieving what was, relieved it’s over, angry it ended this way, or quietly terrified that nothing is coming next. Often, it’s all of those things at once.

We tend to rush this moment. We pressure ourselves to “have a plan”, get through, to bounce back, to reframe quickly. But this space isn’t a problem to solve, it’s something to move through, part of the transition. And like most transitions, it needs gentler rules.

I’ve been playing with the five steps to help the maneuver through this icky moment. Here are some thoughts.

Pause

When a door closes, the first instinct is often to sprint forward. Don’t. Pause is not stagnation; it’s integration. Something has ended, and your system, your processing, emotional, mental, physical, needs time to catch up.

Pausing doesn’t mean doing nothing forever. It means letting the ending land. Naming what you’re feeling without immediately fixing it. Letting yourself say goodbye properly, even if the goodbye wasn’t your choice. This is where you resist the urge to perform resilience and power onwards. It’s ok to go slowly - it will help speed things up when you are ready. It’s like you are on ‘power save’ while you process.

The questions to sit with is: What do I need right now?

Mess

When you pause you open up to messy thoughts. This is the untidy middle where this are uncomfortable, there are no answers, and sometimes it can slip into feeling miserable. Your thoughts loop. Your confidence wobbles. You second-guess past decisions and future ones you haven’t even made.

Mess is uncomfortable because it feels inefficient. it feel un-progressive, it feels frustrating. But mess is where learning happens. It’s where you notice things, what you miss, what you don’t, what you’re oddly relieved to leave behind.

The question to think about is: What is this showing me about myself?

Play

As we open up to mess, this is like the beginning of seeding ideas, playing with ideas is where we start to step forward. Play often feels inappropriate during loss or uncertainty. But play isn’t about frivolity, it’s about curiosity without pressure. Low-stakes exploration. Following energy instead of obligation.

Play might look like conversations without agendas, reading things unrelated to your career, taking a course “just because”, or revisiting interests you once abandoned. You’re not committing. You’re noticing what sparks something, anything, inside you. And ideas start to grow.

The question to play with: What is getting my attention?

Try

Eventually, play turns into trying. Because an idea just wont go away. It grows and you know you need to take a next step. Small, imperfect action perhaps. Not a grand leap necessarily, just a step. A conversation. A project. A tentative yes.

Trying is different from deciding. It’s information-gathering. You don’t need certainty, just enough willingness to see what happens. Some tries will confirm what you don’t want. That’s still progress.

The question to try: What one small imperfect move can I make?

Restart

And now you’ve started, momentum is created. So it’s a moment to own it. The restart moment is where you officially declare to yourself you are going to give this a shot. Time to get serious, own the yeses, own to nos, own every move you make to give this the best chance possible of a good restart.

The question is now: What am I owning?

Also in this moment the questions move from Whats to Hows.

How am I going to show up?

How am I going to own this?

How am I going to give myself the best shot?

It’s also where we return to our first question, but with a bit more focus - What do I need right now (to do this)?

If you’re standing in that space of Now What? right now, door closed, future blurry, know this: you’re not behind. You’re not broken. You’re between chapters.

And Ok, now what? isn’t a demand for answers.

It’s an invitation to begin again, slowly, messily, and on your own terms.