After my post yesterday about letting go of ‘old’ things in order to move into whatever is your next thing, I thought I’d add a little context. And also validate why your life sometimes feels as though it’s on the very edge of chaos.
I present to you ‘The Adaptive Cycle’. Sometimes also called the resilience cycle:
Originally described by a couple of chaps called Gunderson and Holling and published in a book called ‘Panarchy’ in 2002, this cycle was designed to capture the way that ecological and human systems can and do transform.
You too, are a human system1.
I’ll do a quick run through of this sketch as if you’re going through the big transition of moving from your hometown to a brand new place far away (an example I used yesterday).
Let’s start in the green bit.
This part of the cycle is where you’re most comfortable and you’ve been investing resources for a while. For example, in your hometown, you have a nice house that you’ve made your own, you have lots of friends from different phases of your life, connections throughout the community (hairdresser, dentist, barista), and lots of knowledge about the place you’re in.
But…..you can’t seem to get ahead in your administrative assistant job, and your dentist just retired, and you are so tired of the dark little kitchen in the house, your friend Bobbi from high school keeps just ‘popping in’ to complain about her husband, the kids have moved to California with your grand-dog (so rude)….and you’re just not growing any more. Life has become stale (rigid, in the diagram above) and a bit meandering.
Moving up to red bit of the diagram: This is the point of change. There are lots of steps you could take to remedy this ‘staleness’ in your hometown, but you’ve always had a hankering to move to San Diego (and your grand-dog is already out there)…hmmm.
This is the beginning of the ‘breakdown’ step - the place where a decision is made your current circumstances are no longer working for you and that a change needs to be made.
You start to wonder what it would really take to move. You get an appraisal on your house, you figure out how long you could live on savings if you left your job, you mention to Bobbi that you might not be here much longer. Bobbi now complains about you to her husband. This is the release phase. You are actively figuring out how to let go of your current situation.
It all seems feasible (gulp!)
You quit your job, put the house on the market, and look for a job in San Diego. You find a temporary apartment out there, a part-time job to get going, and you pack up a U-Haul. The breakthrough phase! You’re doing it! You’re making the big change.
You spend the next six months figuring things out in your new town - a new hairdresser and dentist, you join a gardening club to make new friends, you decide you’d like to become a lifeguard instead of an administrative assistant and you re-retrain, and buy a new house. You acquire rollerblades. This is the reorganization phase. You are essentially redesigning what you want out of life at this point. And this is the end of the main part of the transition.
Now, you can begin to really grow into your new situation (the growth phase). You spend time with your new rollerblading friends, you become a supervisor to the other lifeguards, you upgrade your kitchen, and plant roses around the door. You become a master gardener and start a blog about roses. You get settled and invested in your new life.
And then, during the conservation phase, you are becoming comfortable again, enjoying the fruits of your investment and your new community. You’re well connected and your level of investment (money, personal change, career) can diminish. Whew….
And then…..you decide to retire.
A whole new trip around the adaptation cycle begins.
Actually, come to think of it, you’re also an ecological system. Lots of other critters living in and around you that I’d prefer not think about usually. So….moving on….
I feel seen.
This is absolutely brilliant… love your examples!! ❤️