The 8 Crucial Turning Points Of Your Life

Turning Points occur at predictable times during our entire adult lives. We make decisions at every Turning Point that affect the next seven to eight years of our lives, so understanding what they are and when they are likely to occur is vital to your life and career.

Do you enjoy your career? Is it what you want it to be? If not, do something to change it. In the prior two articles in this series, I described how you can do just that: create a Personal Vision for your career that takes all of you into account. This will move you from the Stress Cycle into the Balance Cycle and set you on the path to a career that fits you and brings you greater success and satisfaction.

Your Stage Of Adult Development Has A Major Impact On How You View Your Life

To begin crafting your Personal Vision, stop what you are doing and take time to reflect on who you are and what you want. I know this is counter-intuitive to most lawyers but it is doable and it does work. This includes considering each of the Eight Success Factors that I referred to in the previous articles. In this article we will focus on the first factor: Your Stage of Adult Development. [1] Your Stage of Adult Development has a major impact on how you view your life, your choices, and whether or not you are motivated to make a change. So knowing your stage of life gives you a backdrop against which your own life and career will make more sense.

People Usually Become Open To New Ideas When They Are At A Turning Point

First you need to know if you are at a Turning Point. Turning Points occur at predictable times during our entire adult lives, about one in every seven to ten years. They are not single points in time but usually spread out over one to three years. Each Turning Point is initiated by a crisis or a time when we feel like our lives are unraveling: they develop out of the Stress Cycle. We make decisions at all Turning Points that affect the course of the next seven to ten years of our lives, so understanding what they are and when they are likely to occur is critical to your Personal Vision. The Personal Vision you craft when you are 20 will be very different from the one you create when you are 50.

People usually become open to new ideas when they are at a Turning Point. They feel more clearly how their lives do not express who they are, they recognize the gap between how they are living and what want out of life, and they begin to consider alternative directions. At all Turning Points we start looking for answers and try to find something new. Often the search for change is only outer-directed, such as a new job, a new hair color, or maybe even a new spouse or partner. This rarely leads people any closer to what they truly want to be doing, and may result in another round of the Stress Cycle. Instead, you must look inside first to discover the answers that can truly change your life.

Questions You Might Ask Yourself At One Of The Eight Turning Points

Each Turning Point offers a window of time during which you have more energy and interest to examine what you have and to search for something better. The vast majority of lawyers I have coached for career and life transition have been at a Turning Point stage in their lives, usually either Stage Three, Four or Five. Let’s take a look at the eight Turning Points and the questions you can be asking yourself at these stages:

Stage One: High School To College (17 -18 Years Old)

It is during this time that people decide whether or not to go to college and if yes, which college to attend. Questions to ask at this stage include:

• What relationships are about to change for me? • What are my plans for a career? Why? • What are my main talents? • What dreams do I have about the kind of life I want? Why?

Stage Two: College To Work World (22–27 Years Old)

This typically includes the transition from the family to the work world. Most decisions are entry-level decisions such as career choice and what relationships to enter. For lawyers who have taken the traditional route — college at 18 and law school at 22 — this stage corresponds roughly with law school and the first years of practice. The key questions should be:

• Who am I? • What do I want from my career? • How can I put myself in a position to do what I do best? • What kind of lifestyle do I want and is what I am doing leading me to that kind of lifestyle?

Stage Three: Age 30 Assessment (28–33 Years Old)

Regardless of the career direction in which we launch, we do some reassessment around age 30. It is often characterized by a great deal of tentativeness and exploration. There is significant pressure to commit, which leads to reassessing whether you want to be part of the “tribe”, whether that tribe is the law firm, the corporation, or even just continuing to be a lawyer. Good questions to ask include:

• Is this what I want to be doing? Is it getting me what I want? What doesn’t fit? • Am I really using my most important talent(s)? Are there some talents I have that I don’t know about yet? • If my career keeps going the way it is now, where will I be in 10 years? • Is that where I want to be? Why? • What do I really want in life? Is what I am doing going to get me that? If not, I need to do something different. If so, what else should I be shooting for? What do I want to add to make my life fuller?
• Some lawyers decide to make big changes and switch careers; others choose to get serious about the career they are in and to turn up the heat on getting to the top. Whatever gets decided at this Turning Point, people move into their 30s and a period of stability — a Building Stage — because they become either rededicated to earlier goals or shift to new ones.

Stage Four: The Midlife Transition (38–45 Years Old)

This can be one of the most important and significant times in many people’s lives. Or it can be a disaster. It may be the first time many people have become aware of change in their lives. Most get a glimpse of the possible limits to their lives and that the end of life is foreseeable although still distant. They may suddenly realize that there is a huge gap between the person they feel they are and how they are living, and that awareness can be overwhelming, sudden and intense.

Big questions here involve how to use your talents and focus on your values. We turn an invisible corner sometime around age 40 — almost half our lives are over — so the question “Does what I am doing seem worth doing?” speaks up more loudly. One of the worst outcomes is doing nothing at this stage and shoving your feelings under the rug. As with the previous Turning Point, whatever gets decided at the Midlife Transition, people move into their 40s and another period of stability. Examples of questions to ask are:

• How do I feel about my family? My work? What changes would I like to make in the balance of work and family? • What new direction in my life would be fascinating or interesting? • What values do I need to pay attention to and how can I incorporate them in my life? • What goals do I have for the next 20 years of my career? What needs to happen to accomplish them?

Stage Five: Age 50 Assessment (50–55 Years Old)

Just like the Age 30 Assessment, this is a Turning Point in which we reassess the answers of the previous Turning Point. The Age 50 Assessment may have particular relevance for women; those who have been focused on family may become ready to move outward and have an impact on the world, and women who have been juggling the demands of family and work may want to focus more inward. Likewise, men who have been very career-driven their whole lives and focused outward may want to start focusing more inward. Ask yourself:

• What has been working about the path I chose? What hasn’t? • What do I want my life to be like in the next 10 years? • What values do I need to pay attention to? What interests? • Is what I am doing meaningful? If not, why not?

Stage Six: Pre-Retirement Transition/Second Careers (60–65 Years Old)

We again create a new life at this stage, just as we did in the transition from Family to Adult World in our 20s and Midlife Transition in our 40s. This stage should build on everything that has gone on before. It should also be new: you should be thinking about what you want to continue doing, what you want to drop and what you want to add. This thinking should occur at least 5 years before retiring. Great questions include:

• What excites me about work? What has become old and stale? • What experience and skills of the first 40 years of my career do I want to be sure to incorporate in this next phase of my life? • What do I want to leave the world? What will be my legacy? • How will the next 20 years contribute to that legacy?

Having a Personal Vision at this age that answers these kinds of questions can help people live longer.

Stages Seven and Eight: Age 70 Assessment (70–75 Years Old) and Senior Transition (80–85 Years Old).

Many studies have shown that having a Personal Vision for these years can make all the difference between living and dying, both emotionally and physically. Questions to consider at these two stages include:

• How do I feel about my daily life? • What things can I do to keep me healthy and happy? • What can I add to my life to make it more interesting and meaningful? • What can I give back to the world? How can I do that? • Who would benefit from my knowledge and experience? • What losses am I dealing with? What changes would I like to make to obtain more balance and connection?

Without a Personal Vision, when you arrive at a Turning Point you can make one of two big mistakes: doing nothing or making sudden, catastrophic and ill-considered moves that will turn your life upside down. Having a Personal Vision gives you a tool to use now and in the future when you navigate change.

NOTES: (1) McDonald, Bob, Ph.D. and Hutcheson, Don Evans. Don’t Waste Your Talent:The 8 Critical Steps To Discovering What You Do Best. Atlanta, Longstreet Press, 2000.

Anne Whitaker is an executive and career coach for legal professionals and has worked with individuals and groups for over 30 years. A former practicing attorney, educator and business owner, Anne combines her legal experience, coach training and expertise, and business acumen to assist her clients in achieving their career and life goals. Anne is also well known for her speaking, writing and facilitating. She has created, chaired and presented more than 20 programs on attorney career development topics for associations, law firms and corporations. Her articles on lawyer career-related topics have appeared in local and national lawyer publications.