Between Versions · 2026

By Wendi McLean

Between Versions is a space for ambitious women navigating the moments when life changes before identity has had time to catch up. In these in-between periods it is common to feel untethered, uncertain, or adrift. Yet this space is often where the next version of ourselves quietly begins to take shape.

When Reality Stops Defining Potential

I had an interesting conversation with my children recently about careers.

My son’s currently in a role that no longer feels particularly fulfilling. He enjoys aspects of what he does and takes pride in doing good work, but increasingly he feels he is carrying more responsibility than recognition. More ownership without seeing that reflected in opportunity or reward.

As we talked, something interesting emerged. What became clear was that he could only see his next move as starting again. If he changed direction or moved into something new, in his mind he would have to go back to the beginning. Start at the bottom. Lose progress. Almost as though everything he had built up until now would somehow disappear.

And I found myself trying to explain something that I think many of us forget at different points in our lives.

Changing direction does not always mean starting over.

Sometimes it means moving sideways.

Sometimes it means carrying everything you have learned and applying it somewhere new.

Skills transfer. Experience transfers. Capability transfers.

Yet when we become too attached to our current reality, we can struggle to see that. We begin to assume that our next opportunity must follow a neat ladder upwards, rather than recognising that growth often looks much less linear than we expect.

Later that day I found myself speaking to my daughter and the contrast between the two conversations stayed with me.

Years ago she decided she wanted to build a career in HR. Anyone who has worked around HR knows it isn’t always a straightforward route in. Experience is often needed to gain access, but access is often needed to gain experience. It can feel like a loop.

What struck me was that she never seemed discouraged by that.

Over the years she took positions she didn’t always love. She worked with difficult people. She accepted roles that perhaps didn’t always make obvious sense to other people looking in. But she never viewed those roles as permanent or as evidence that she wasn’t progressing.

She viewed them as part of the route.

She was willing to move sideways and occasionally even backwards because she wasn’t measuring success against where she was at that moment. She was measuring it against where she intended to go.

Not because she had certainty.

Not because she knew exactly how things would unfold.

But because she already held an internal picture of herself moving in that direction.

As I reflected on both conversations, I realised this wasn’t really about careers and it certainly wasn’t about men versus women. What stayed with me was where each of them was placing their attention.

My son was looking at current reality and asking what his situation allowed. My daughter seemed to be holding a future version of herself and asking what experiences, opportunities and choices might help her become that person.

And it made me think about something I see often.

How often do we mistake our current reality for our potential?

How often do we quietly decide that because we are here now, this must define what comes next? That our current role defines our capability. That our circumstances define our options. That if reality has not changed yet, perhaps we are not ready.

But reality and potential are not the same thing.

I talk often about identity and reality not always moving together. Usually I write about identity catching up with reality, the internal shift that follows external change. But perhaps there is another version of this that deserves attention.

Sometimes identity arrives first.

Sometimes we begin to see ourselves differently before there is any evidence to support it. Before the title appears. Before the opportunity presents itself. Before anything externally suggests we are ready.

Perhaps identity quietly moves ahead and starts creating the conditions for reality to catch up.

Looking back, I don’t think my daughter has been waiting for reality to catch up before allowing herself to move. She is still on that journey and still building towards where she wants to go. But what strikes me is that she has consistently made decisions that reflect the future she is trying to create rather than the reality she happens to be standing in today.

She hasn’t needed certainty to begin.

Not because she knows exactly how things will unfold, and not because she has every answer. But because she has allowed herself to move before reality fully reflects the destination. Her identity has quietly moved ahead and her choices have started creating the conditions for reality to catch up.

And perhaps that is where many of us become stuck.

We wait until we feel qualified. We wait until someone validates us, until confidence appears, until circumstances improve. We assume that confidence is the starting point and that once we feel ready, then we will move.

But confidence isn’t always the beginning.

Confidence is more often created through movement, identity moves first and reality follows later.

That can feel uncomfortable. Untethered. Even unrealistic at times. Because externally very little appears to be changing and there is often very little evidence to reassure us that we are doing the right thing.

But internally, something already has.

In closing

This left me reflecting on something I see often in women navigating change.

Many are not stuck because they lack ability. More often, they are waiting for reality to give them permission to move. They are waiting for evidence. Certainty. Validation that they are ready.

But what if identity goes first?

What if the version of you that wants something isn’t unrealistic, but simply arriving before reality has caught up?

And perhaps that space between who you are today and who you are becoming isn’t a gap to close.

Perhaps it is the bridge.

The place where possibility slowly becomes reality.