Is it time for a new chapter?

There are several times during our adult years when we find compelling reasons to create a new chapter — to launch our lives again. We live in a world of discontinuous, constant change — The Hudson Institute.

Today, it’s all about Hudson’s Cycle of Renewal, a model I have used extensively with groups and individuals alike. It is highly effective in helping people assess and make sense of their careers and lives.

Over the years, I have noticed that people can grasp it straight away and find they can ‘hang their coat’ on it. It makes immediate sense to them, and they can see in a non-threatening way when they have been operating at their best and accept those times when they were not.

The Renewal Cycle model, as conceived by Frederic Hudson, describes our lives in terms of chapters, each having four phases:

• Heroic: or ‘go for it’
• Disillusioned or ‘stuck in the doldrums’
• Reflective or ‘looking inward’
• Revitalised or ‘taking on/moving forward‘

It can relate to any aspect of our lives, but I use it primarily with career change and how we move through each phase and onto a new chapter will be different for each individual.

Phase one, or the Heroic phase, is a great place to be. In this phase, we feel optimistic about our situation. We believe we are precisely in the right place at the right time. It is our moment to shine. We have the energy to meet our challenges and actively seek new opportunities.

In the heroic phase, we are proactive, energised, focused, and clear about where we are and want to be. We are likely to feel confident about our abilities and confident in what the future holds.

We may find ourselves in Heroic after settling into a new job, getting promoted, or moving to a new country. Maybe we’ve achieved a long-held dream and made a complete career change. Indeed, we may find ourselves in the Heroic phase after leaving work and living our lives entirely differently.

So, what can happen to move us from ‘heroic’ to disillusioned?

Sometimes, we can become complacent or too comfortable and stop stretching and pushing ourselves—after a while, we might even become bored.

In our enthusiasm, we might take on too much, and almost without realising it, we move towards ‘overload’.

Organisational or role changes also impact how we see our careers; a tiny change in our role might be enough to shift us across to disillusioned.

The disillusioned phase is not a great place; once here, we are likely to feel unhappy and negative about our career and feel that there is little we can do to improve it.

The disillusioned phase is typically characterised by us as individuals knowing what we don’t want but not being able to articulate what we do want clearly. This phase is about ‘holding on’ and not wanting to let anything go, even the unhelpful stuff.

However, clients/participants sometimes give me the odd wry smile when I point out that this phase can be curiously ‘comfortable’ as it is a known entity, something familiar even if it’s not great.

Disillusioned is a reactive, holding-on phase; we are not pushing forward and are likely ‘huddled up’, waiting for it all to disappear.

Fortunately, most of us will reach a point where even we get tired of living in this phase. We will have grown weary of repeatedly hearing ourselves go through the same litany of negatives.

So, we start to make a series of minor improvements, such as changes to our working hours and routes to work. We might even take on new hobbies and training courses. In the short term, we find that we zip back to ‘Heroic’ for a while, at least. This is what Hudson refers to as a ‘mini transition’.

This approach may work for quite some time, with individuals ‘zipping’ back and forth between Heroic and Disillusioned after each small change. But at some point, we will again start to notice a pattern and recognise that a more fundamental and long-lasting change is needed.

At this point, we may start to look ‘inward’ and ask ourselves, ‘What do I really want and what matters to me now?’ We then move into the third phase, ‘Reflective.’

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom — Anais Nin.

This quote perfectly describes the decision or the point at which we start to think about how to move on from feeling stuck. In other words, it illustrates how we move from Hudson’s ‘Disillusioned’ phase onto phase three, ‘Reflective’.

We may have begun to recognise a pattern of ‘zipping’ back and forth between Heroic and Disillusioned. Perhaps something more fundamental needs to change, or maybe some external event almost forces us to take the risk of looking inward and taking stock.

Our search for answers within us characterises the reflective phase. In this phase, we want to uncover deeply held values, beliefs, aspirations and dreams. We may have spent years trying to ignore or bury them because they weren’t practical or feasible.

Unlike the disillusioned phase, which is characterised by ‘holding on’, the reflective phase is also characterised by ‘letting go’. In this phase, we jettison those things that no longer serve us or might be holding us back.

We may seek outside help as we explore what’s going on internally. We might choose to talk with family and friends or feel that we need to speak with someone outside of our immediate circle who can offer an external perspective and has no direct stake in our choices.

In summary, the reflective phase is about ‘digging deep’—uncovering our dreams, hopes, aspirations, values, and beliefs and accepting and letting go of the things that are no longer relevant or helpful to us.

So, armed with greater self-knowledge and awareness and with a ‘spring’ in our step, we move onto phase four, ‘Revitalised’, as we start to look outward for new opportunities, training, learning, and networks that will prepare us for moving back into the Heroic phase of our new life chapter.

Until next time.

Janice Taylor