It’s easy to feel like our adulthood consists of one event after another, without a clear sense of direction or progress. When we’re young, it’s easy to see a series of milestones that will keep us moving along the path we call life. We graduate high school, then college, and start working. Once our careers get going, though, it’s easy to feel we’ve plateaued. The signposts marking our lives start to grow more erratic, making us more likely to fall into a rut. But this sense of stagnancy isn’t a matter of course.

“A novel has to have shape, and life doesn’t have any,” the writer Jean Rhys once said. While real-life may not build to an epic confrontation like the Harry Potter series, that doesn’t mean we can’t set ourselves up to create new and exciting chapters for ourselves. Certainly, you can’t structure your life as perfectly as an author plots a story, but you can keep life from being something that happens to you. Increasing your level of agency starts with you. 

When you feel especially stifled, it’s tempting to dream about a rip-it-up-and-start-again approach. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun to read stories of people who stormed into their office and said, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.” A high-risk option like completely nuking your current professional standing isn’t a realistic path for most people. Luckily, you don’t need to jump into the next phase of your life without plotting what that jump might look like. Preparing for a future that looks considerably different than the present can take many forms, but I believe there are a few essential steps and qualities that will allow you to turn the page with your best foot forward. 

Visions of a new world

There are some situations where your first step to creating a new phase should be leaving your own one entirely. For the most part, though, setting yourself up for a change involves assessing your current surroundings and evaluating what better ones might look like. If you enjoy your workplace but not the nature of your work, you can consider pursuing a different role at your current organization. Conversely, if you enjoy your work but not where you do it, you may seek a similar or better role elsewhere. Of course, when you get don’t get pleasure from either your job or your workplace, it may be time to step back, pause and reassess. 

When drafting up your new story, don’t just focus on the hours you spend working. While we fill up much of our waking lives with our professions, they don’t define us. It’s entirely possible that tinkering with the fulfillment you get outside of the office will change how you feel when you’re in it. Developing work-life harmony isn’t just about finding a job that allows you to live in alignment with your values; it’s also about building a life that makes your work feel all the more rewarding. 

Transformation from within

Just as surely as you need to survey the landscape before making a move, you need to take stock of what’s going on with you. It’s easy to blame external forces for all the things we don’t like about our life, but we often play a role in our frustrations. Do you have habits that are holding you back? Are there areas of your life where you find yourself going through the motions? Have you given up on seeking meaning and value outside of work and family? Answering these questions honestly is essential to truly restructure your life. 

In many cases, doing this inward work first will give you a better sense of what you’re looking for in your career and personal life. We ask children what they want to be when they grow up, but you need to ask yourself who you want to be today? Understanding what really matters to you and how you can contribute to those around you will give you a better sense of what your ideal career will look like. 

Be ready to adapt

Here we get back to the authorial control point I discussed at the beginning of this article. No matter how much you prepare, you can’t assume that every step of the way will proceed accordingly. Life has an unrelenting habit of throwing us curve balls when we least expect them. If you buckle at the slightest sign of adversity or tumult, you’ll never get where you want to go. Expect that there will be swerves and surprises as you begin a new phase, because to put it bluntly, there will be. 

Whether we want to make a big change or simply tinker with small aspects of our lives, we don’t need to feel like actors in somebody else’s play. You have the power to direct the action to a certain degree and provided you understand you can’t do it totally, you can be an active participant in creating the next phase of you.