One of the most difficult aspects of gaining your own
personal vision is getting outside your own systems. The most effective strategy
for this is following a structured process. This ensures that you systematically
take into account not only factors that are comfortable to you but also ones
that you might not think about otherwise.
Everyone you already know (friends, family, colleagues, boss,
relatives, club members, place of worship members) are all part of your current
structure. In spite of their most loving intentions, they are connected to you
in a way that makes it impossible for them to help you gain a new perspective on
your life. Basically, all they can do is help you keep doing what you have
always been doing. Even if you change jobs, cities or marriages, you always
eventually wind up stuck in the same place you have always been unless you
escape your systems.
Like many people, one of our clients Anne had never taken the
time to step back and consider her life. Anne, like most people her age, had
spent the majority of her career jumping through hoops. She had gone after a
college degree, a good job, a better position, more pay, a path to the executive
suite. Each of these goals had focused her entire attention and energy outside
of herself.
None of these hoops were wrong in and of themselves, of
course. What blocked Anne was her failure to look inside to express what would
be most meaningful for her. All of her goals were set by her systems. She never
stopped to question them or decide how they matched up with her own profoundest
beliefs. She was a victim of the system, which always has a limited view of us.
We are whole people but systems see only roles and functions. Even when we have
new ideas and new wants, our systems assume we have remained on the same path
and that we have the same buy-in to the system's values and rules that we always
did.
One of the most difficult aspect is STOPPING - setting aside
a significant amount of time and energy to do the work. If you are
stressed, you believe that everything is urgent and nothing can be put aside for
a time so that you can figure out how you want to live your life. The structured
processes available on this website will help you get to all the important
factors you need to consider at the major turning points of your adult life. It
is thorough and effective. It is not a bandaid or motivational trick to excite
you for a while but lead nowhere. Use it NOW and at any future turning point, to
help you envision the next stage of your life.
You need to give your creative mind and logical mind a chance
to work on the problem of getting to your vision over a period of several weeks
or months. A powerful exercise is to review your life, considering each of the
major Turning Points from age 18 to 80 (even if you haven't reached all of them
yet).
Here are the instructions: Take 8
blank pages, one for each major Turning Point of your life – ages 18 to 80+.
1. High School to College (age 17-18)
2. College to Work (age 22-25)
3. Age 30 Assessment (age 28-33)
4. Midlife Transition (age 38-45)
5. Age 50 Assessment (age 50-55)
6. Pre-Retirement Transition (age 60-65)
7. Age 70 Assessment (age 70-75)
8. Senior Transition (age 80-85)
Write answers to the questions below in these pages. But don’t write about
them in past tense as though you are your age looking back; write in present
tense as though you are looking forward. For instance, for your senior school to
college/university transition section, you might write, "I plan to be a doctor,
but I am not sure, because I’m afraid it could turn out to be fairly boring. I
just don’t know what else to look at." Write either from your actual point of
view at 18 or from the point of view of yourself as 18, but incorporating all
that you have learned since then.
Proceed to each Turning Point, writing In each as though you are that age. Go
backwards to all previous Turning Points. Do your present (or next) Turning
Point. Go forward to all future Turning Points. Use the questions to get
started, but write about anything that seems significant in how you were
assessing your life at the time (or imagine yourself assessing it in the future)
and in making plans for the next section of your life.
SENIOR SCHOOL TO COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY (AGE 17-18)
Answer these questions as though you are 18. What are the main issues on my
mind? What are the main decisions I face now? What relationships are about to
change (e.g., between me and my parents, or me and my high school friends)? In
looking to the future, what are the most important factors I now think about?
What are my plans for the future? Why? What plans do I have for a career? Why?
How did I choose that direction among all the possible directions I could have
chosen? What are my main talents? What dreams do I have about the kind of life I
want? Why?
COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY TO WORK (AGE 22-25)
What skills have I developed? What experience do I have? What kind of work am
I most interested in? In choosing a career path, what is the most important
deciding factor? What kind of lifestyle do I want? Is what I am doing leading me
to that kind of lifestyle? What are my feelings about the adult work world? How
do I think I will fit in?
AGE 30 ASSESSMENT (AGE 28-30)
What has been working about the course I chose? What hasn’t been working?
What do I want to achieve in the next 10 years? How will I do that? What would I
need to change to put myself in a better position? What do I want my life to be
like 10 years from now? What values do I need to pay attention to? What
interests? What are my family goals? How am I balancing work and family? What
would be most meaningful to me at his point in my career? What could it add to
my life to make it more interesting and meaningful?
MIDLIFE TRANSITION (AGE 38-45)
How do I feel about my family? How do I feel about work? What changes would I
like to make in the balance of work and family? How connected do I feel to
others? What excites me about work? What has become old and stale? What else
besides work would I find exciting? Or, what new direction in my life would feel
interesting and fascinating to me? What could I pursue that would be interesting
and meaningful? What values do I need to pay attention to? How can I carry that
out? What goals do I have for die next 20 years of my career? What needs to
happen to accomplish them? What experience and what skills of the first 20 years
of my career do I want to be sure to take with me into the next?
AGE 50 ASSESSMENT (AGE 50-55)
Note for women: Many of the questions of the section on midlife (see above)
may apply to you at this Turning Point.
What has been working about the course I chose? What hasn’t been working?
What do I want to achieve in the next 10 years? How will I do that? What would I
need to change to put myself in better position? What do I want my life to be
like 10 years from now? What values do I need to pay attention to? What
interests? What are my family goals? How am I balancing work and family? Is what
I am doing meaningful? If not, why not? 1-low can I make my career more
meaningful? What can I add to my life to make it more interesting and
meaningful?
PRE-RETIREMENT TRANSITION (AGE 60-65)
How do I feel about my family? How do I feel about work? What changes would I
like to make in the balance of work and family? How connected do I feel to
others? What excites me about work? What has become old and stale? What else
besides work would I find exciting? Or, what new direction in my life would feel
interesting and fascinating to me? What can I pursue that would be interesting
and meaningful? What values do I need to pay attention to? How can I carry that
out? What goals do I have for the next 20 years of my career? What needs to
happen to accomplish them? What experience and what skills of the first 40 years
of my career do I want to be sure to take with me into the next phase? What can
I give back to the world? How can I do that? Who could benefit from my knowledge
and experience?
AGE 70 ASSESSMENT (AGE 70-75)
What losses am I contending with? What losses can I expect in the next 10
years? How can I provide enough reinforcement in life to keep me healthy and
happy? What has been working about the course I chose? What hasn’t been working?
What do I want to achieve in the next 10 years? How will I do that? What would I
need to change to put myself in better position? What do I want my life to be
like tO years from now? What values do I need to pay attention to? What
interests? What are my family goals? How am I balancing work and family? Is what
I am doing meaningful? If not, why not? How can I make my career more
meaningful? What can I add to my life to make it more interesting and
meaningful?
SENIOR TRANSITION (AGE 80-85)
What losses am I contending with? What losses can I expect in the next 10
years? How can I provide enough reinforcement in life to keep me healthy and
happy? How do I feel about my family? How do I feel about my day-to-day life?
What changes would I like to make in the balance of activity and family? How
connected do I feel to others? What excites me about my daily life? What has
become old and stale? What other kind of activity would I find exciting? Or,
what new direction in my life would feel interesting and fascinating to me? What
could I pursue that would be interesting and meaningful? What values do I need
to pay attention to? How can I carry that out? What goals do I have for the next
10 years of my life? What needs to happen to accomplish them? What experience
and what skills of my working life do I want to be sure to take with me into the
next phase? What can I give back to the world? How can I do that? Who could
benefit from my knowledge and experience? What forum or group could use my
experience?
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Wait for a few days, and then read over everything you have written about
Turning Points. Do you see any recurring themes? What issues keep coming up?
What new issues come up, and at what ages? What were the key decisions you made
in your life? How did you make them? Were you always aware of what the impact of
key decisions would be, or not? What key decisions can you see in the future?
