The Art of Reinvention | Finding Purpose in Life's Unexpected Chapters

* Part 5 in an 8-part series based on the social media campaign, "Beyond the Closet - 12 Questions with Jennifer"

One of the reasons Out of Africa has stayed with me isn't simply its sweeping landscapes or beautiful cinematography.

It's a story about what happens when the life you carefully imagined becomes something entirely different.

I understand that theme more today than I did the first time I saw the film.

Maybe most of us eventually do.

We Love a Plan

I've spent much of my career in strategic planning.

I believe in plans.

I also own a small business, which is an excellent way to discover that life has absolutely no obligation to follow one.

Careers change.

Relationships change.

Children grow up.

Businesses evolve.

We lose people.

Doors close that we were certain would remain open.

And sometimes an entirely unexpected door appears.

Reinvention Isn't Failure

I think we often treat reinvention as evidence that the original plan somehow went wrong.

I've come to see it differently.

Changing direction doesn't erase what came before. It incorporates it.

My own career has included journalism, communications, politics, nonprofits, teaching, strategic planning, entrepreneurship and design.

Those chapters may look unrelated on paper.

They're not.

Every one gave me something I needed for the next.

The Characters I Admire Are Imperfect

I've always been drawn to stories about beautifully imperfect people.

People who make mistakes.

Who experience disappointment.

Who don't know exactly what they're doing next.

And who keep moving anyway.

Perhaps that's because resilience interests me more than perfection.

Perfection is static.

Resilience requires transformation.

Letting Go of the Imagined Life

This may be one of adulthood's more difficult lessons.

Sometimes we have to mourn what we thought something would be before we can appreciate what it actually became.

That isn't giving up.

It's making room.

And often, the chapters we never planned are the ones that reveal capacities we didn't know we possessed.

I've learned things about courage from disappointment, about gratitude from loss and about myself from circumstances I certainly wouldn't have chosen.

Would I have written every chapter exactly this way?

No.

But that's no longer the question that interests me.

The more useful question is:

What can I make of the chapter I'm in?

Because reinvention isn't about becoming someone entirely new.

Sometimes it's simply discovering who you've been becoming all along.

* About the photo: My friend Maudie invited me to a chakra cleansing and mood-board workshop at the beginning of last year.  I'd never done either, and it was very insightful and centering.  I recommend giving it a shot!