We’ve all heard the saying “the only constant is change.” However, when change lands on our doorstep we are usually bewildered and uncertain of where and how we will land on solid ground again.

So many of us find new beginnings exciting. Others find them scary. What possibilities are ahead for you in 2010? What ones will come and what ones will you create? So, how are you going to greet the New Year?

This season has been all about shedding and getting rid of, an activity that I’ve traditionally thought of as “spring cleaning”. The key question to ask yourself is, “what am I doing that no longer serves me?”

So, no job. Or you are scared to death as a new retiree because you don’t know where next to move. If you are an introvert, the pressure may be more intensified, since the fear of networking can be as frightening as job loss. Well, maybe not quite as scary as having no job, no but scary enough to render some of you ineffective and, perhaps immobile.

Attitude affects behaviors and if you are thinking that you can never be young again and are too old for the job market, take solace from the research that indicates that young people can never be you! Whatever the job market, and the hard times we are going through, your age can work for you.

Fall always brings to my mind fall foliage, back to school, and the story of the pilgrims with the very first Thanksgiving. Fall is traditionally known as a time of harvest, of gathering the bounty for the coming winter.

I went to a networking meeting in NYC at The Transition Network last month and I found it inspiring to be surrounded by a group of women who are actively choosing to reinvent themselves—and the ages of these women are 50+ to 80.

Laura told me she had recently attended a seminar at the aquarium about the evolution of salmon, which are among the most adaptive of fish. They swim many miles upstream to spawn and then die, while the juveniles swim back out to sea to begin the cycle again. Only the most hardy survive, as they adapt to the challenging journey. Her instructor had included a reference to Charles Darwin, who famously postulated that the animal species must adapt, migrate or die, just as the salmon do. Adapt, migrate or die has become her mantra for the future.