The Moffitt Method of Skillfully Navigating
Major Life Changes

Living a Values-Based Life Leads to Sustainable Well-Being

All my adult life I had been interested in the question of whether it is possible to create and sustain a sense of inner well-being that is not based on fulfilling desires and ambitions. Because these inner life questions were so strong within me, and once I had proved to myself that I could succeed in business and in journalistic endeavors, I found being in those worlds less and less satisfying. It was not that my work was not fun and exciting but that the repetition itself was not refreshing to my spirit. This dissatisfaction was due to my particular predilection for inner inquiry. It was not a criticism or a disparagement of the way I had lived. I saw all my creative endeavors had been a great adventure. But now the predominant feeling was that I was simply repeating myself, and I was not sufficiently motivated by material rewards or glory to stay motivated.

Changing your life dramatically and leaving behind material success is not an appropriate aspiration for most people. But I do believe that there are many people with similar sensibilities of searching for a purpose and values-based life and that such people long to leave their current career in order to pursue a “third adult life” while still full of life energy. Your first adult life is establishing yourself in your adult roles in work and as a person. Your second adult life is focusing on success in your work and your personal life. And your third adult life is available when you know what really matters to you personally and what you really want to do in the way of work, creativity, and service. The third life can be an entire new career, leaving a marriage now that the children are grown, or leaving a well-paying job for a job of service.

How I Came to Do Change & Transition Strategy Work with Individuals and Groups

Once I left Esquire and resettled myself in California, to my surprise a number of people started seeking me out for advice and direction–would be entrepreneurs, especially in the tech world wanted guidance and feedback on their ideas. Likewise, people dissatisfied in their careers even though they were successful came to me looking for support in making a change. Another group of people, although satisfied with their work, yearned for a greater sense of meaning in their lives. I later concluded that the reason I was sought out had to do with my having made a major change of letting go of success in my own life in front of the public eye.

I was happy to be of help with each of these individuals. I felt so fortunate in my own life journey. I resisted any formal structuring of the advising I was providing and resisted taking any remuneration for the work. In helping people with making major life changes, I definitely was not seeking another career opportunity. But, finally a leader of a major organization who I was helping in matters both personal and business insisted I accept payment and that we formalize in our work together. He felt my casual approach to the service I was providing left him feeling that he was unfairly taking advantage of me.

Thus, was born the Life Balance Institute and now, after more than thirty years of helping people in transitions, the website SkillfulChange and an entire team of Change and Transition Strategists who have been through an intensive training program with me that has prepared them to utilize The Moffitt MethodSM in working with individual clients and groups.

From the time I left Esquire, I was invited to lead workshops for leaders. Once I had created the Life Balance Institute, I reshaped these workshops into Changes and Transitions WorkshopsSM in which a small group of people from various professional backgrounds spend 2 ½ days together to assess what change is needed in their personal and professional lives. In these workshops, the attendees complete a series of self-assessments that clarify their level of satisfaction with various aspects of their lives. With this information, they then identify the change or changes they want to make. People consistently report on how satisfying it us to have the time and support to examine their lives in this manner.

In working with individuals and leading workshops over the decades, I slowly created a large body of work in this field of changes and transitions based on adult developmental stages. I did this without ambition: each new assessment or client protocol came about as a response to an actual person in an actual situation. The material never came from theory or concept, but from what I observed from working with hundreds of people and saw directly what actually helps contribute to making skillful changes and transitions.

How I Became a Pioneer in the Field of Adult Developmental Stages

Everyone accepts without question the existence of childhood developmental stages that are physical, hormonal, emotional, and psychological in nature. The body changes, the brain changes, we develop an ego sense of self and learn how to handle a wide range of emotions and experiences. Likewise, it is accepted that these stages occur at approximately the same age for almost all children. We also know that some children struggle with making one or more successful developmental stage transitions due a range of factors from having to do with their own physical and emotional capacities to the difficult circumstances in which they go through these stages. It is widely accepted that some children will need help with one or a number of these developmental stages.

However, for a long time, society usually treated adult life as just a process of getting older, learning about the world, developing some skill sets, and gaining life experience. An adult was supposed to be a grown-up regardless of whatever insufficiencies, defeats, and uncertainties they may be experiencing. The idea that there are specific stages in adult development occurring in certain age ranges was not part of the larger cultural idea of adulthood.

It would have been even more unimaginable that adult life stages are identifiable by the specific challenges that arise during that time of development. And, that there are certain emotional and psychological capacities that arise with each stage of adult life. Few people realized that there is process for deliberate enhancement of certain mental and imaginative skills that clarify and empower change.

Of course, psychotherapists and other counselors existed, but they were primarily identified as people you turned towards because “you had a problem of some sort.” In the 1960’s and 70’s all sorts of self-help and human potential groups came into vogue. But it was not until Dr. Daniel Levinson presented his heavily researched, data driven model of adult developmental stages that we began to understand that adults go through specific stages of inner growth and that these stages can be referenced and consciously engaged for an enhanced sense of empowerment and well-being.

It was in the 1970’s when I was at Esquire magazine that I first became aware of the field research that Dr. Levinson did at Yale. His work influenced many of my editorial decisions about the kinds of articles I published. Through extensive gathering of data, Levinson proved that there were specific adult developmental stages and that almost all adults went through these stages at approximately the same age range. He theorized that each stage has a task or a crisis that needs to be resolved. Levinson’s work was groundbreaking and can be found in his books Seasons of a Man’s Life, and Seasons of a Woman’s Life. His statistical findings were later popularized by author Gail Sheehy in her book Passages and by William Bridges in his book Transitions.

Originally in helping my clients, I worked within the framework of Levinson’s adult developmental stages. But as the years went by, and my experience base grew, I started to create my own model and identified the tasks, challenges, and empowerments of each stage. With my model, you can orient yourself with regard to what your current stage is about and also what tasks you might have missed in the past and now need to catch up on. Another benefit of using the Moffitt Model of Adult Developmental Stages is that you see that many of the challenges you experience are not because of some personal failure but are instead due to the stage-based challenges that normally happen throughout the arc of adulthood.

The Moffitt Model of Adult Developmental Stages

In the Moffitt Model of Adult Developmental Stages, I base my observations about the tasks, challenges, and empowerments of each stage on the work I have done with well over a thousand meditation students and clients. In hearing their stories of struggle with difficulties in their adult lives, I have a data base from which to draw my conclusions about the tasks and inner growth potential inherent in each stage. My work on adult developmental stages is also indebted to a number of philosophers and psychologists from the 1900’s on such as Arnold van Gennep and his understanding of liminal states, Jose Ortega y Gasset who popularized the idea that life is a continual interaction between a person and their circumstances, and Carl Jung who emphasized that psychological and emotional development is a life-long process as opposed to adulthood being a fixed stage.

Perhaps you will recognize in yourself the developmental tasks, challenges, and empowerments that I identify in my model of adult developmental stages. For example, in the first phase of the early adult stage (ages 28 to 32), two of the tasks I specify are that you accept being a grown up and that you abandon magical thinking. The challenge of this stage is that it can be delayed or incomplete. The empowerment is that you feel like a grown-up version of yourself and relate to older adults as an adult rather than a child.

Another example from my model is in the first phase of the middle adult stage which occurs from ages 40 to 44. The tasks of this stage are to accept no longer being a young adult and to recognize the advantages of being grown-up. The empowerment of this stage is sorting out your values and priorities and the challenge is that there is a potential loss of future opportunities if we are not realistic about what is actually possible for us.

These are just two of the twelve stages that I identify in the Moffitt Model of Adult Stages of Development. Can you see how having this map of the journey of adult life can support you in being more empowered in your life? With this model, I and all the Certified Change and Transition Strategists have a powerful tool to draw upon to help any individual be wiser, kinder, and more skillful in their own response to their changes and transitions.

Who Chooses to Do Change and Transition Strategy Sessions?

People who look for assistance in making a major change and transition in their lives do so because they want to make a conscious change that genuinely reflects what will bring happiness and an ongoing sense of well-being. Their priority is to avoid making a change that is reactionary to their current difficult situation. Clients who engage in this work want to know that the change they are making will make a difference and be sustainable. They are looking for an empowering experience in which they can clean up left over turmoil from past decisions that may be limiting their current capacity in some manner. Or they want support in leaving a life structure they have simply outgrown and want guidance in imagining and implementing a new life structure. They may come with a specific question: should they sell their company, take or leave a major job or opportunity, or leave their profession because it no longer provides meaning in their lives?

People who discover us through the SkillfulChange website may be facing external pressures that are causing them to contemplate change—a possible layoff, a new opportunity that is arising, a realization that their marriage is failing, or that their work feels meaningless, or they now have enough financial security to seek other interests or new opportunities. Or they may see that they are simply not responding effectively to the challenges of their lives or that life itself is starting to feel meaningless.

It is common for people to come to do Change & Transition Strategy sessions because they have a decision to make, or because they are being treated unfairly in terms of financial rewards, or acknowledgement, or in being offered opportunities and need help sorting out what to do about it. People will often report being overwhelmed or feeling helpless in regard to a particular change. Impending change creates a lack of balance in your life and having a life that is out of balance creates the need for making a change and, I assert, consciously engaging with the transition that follows.

In almost all instances Change and Transition clients are not seeking the kind of psychological and emotional help that psychotherapy so skillfully offers. Instead, they are seeking practical guidance that helps them establish what matters to them, help with identifying the possible responses to the situation they are in, and support in creating and implementing a plan to respond to it.

What Defines Success in Change & Transition Work?

My definition of a completed change and transition process is first of all to ask if the client got through the liminal stage of their transition – did they move out of deliberation and into committing to their change and taking action? (There are a number of steps in this process, each of which has its own separate challenges.) Often, part of a transition is due to a client entering a new stage of adult development.

The second indicator of success is: does the client have greater self-knowledge regarding their values and what really matters to them? My third definition of success asks: has the client gained new skills that will empower them in responding to future changes? A fourth measurement I look for: does the client have a larger capacity for self-calming and centering? I also look to see if the client now has an enhanced capacity for self-compassion and kindness that can also be extended to others. A fifth measurement of success, and one that is more subtle, is does the client feel a greater sense of purpose and authenticity that brings meaning and coherence to their life? There are other measurements that vary by the individual such as the client’s ability to be honest with themselves or the client’s ability to be accountable to themselves and others.

I am often asked by people who have read my writing or heard me speak: do I need to do some sessions with a Change & Transition Strategist? Only the individual can answer such a question. The indicators of a “yes, you should” include something looming and challenging in your work life, a dissatisfaction in either your professional or personal life, a sense of disappointment that “this all there is to it,” feelings of boredom with your life or that you are drifting or falling into a state of ennui, a calling that you need to do something different, or that you know a change is needed but don’t know where to start.

The Benefits of Consciously Participating in the Way Your Life Unfolds Inwardly and Outwardly

In the 30 years I have been helping people with changes and transitions, I have witnessed an increase in how much awareness people have of their inner life. At the minimum, there is a subset of people who acknowledge the existence of an inner life experience within each of us which keeps changing and developing whether or not we attend to it. It means that a major part of our life experience is somewhat independent of our ego, and our views and opinions, even our stated goals.

With more awareness of the subtleties of continual growth and development throughout adult life, there is an increasing number of people who are willing to take the time and do the hard work that allows them to be a conscious participant in the way that their life unfolds inwardly and outwardly. Again, I readily acknowledge the existence and value of psychotherapeutic work, but I am pointing to a different model of growth and experience. In Change & Transition Strategy work, we fully accept there exists an unfolding inner life experience and we name and integrate it into all the practical considerations that are necessary for an effective “Journey through Change.” This full consideration and blend of the inner as well as the outer is why our work is truly life balancing in its core.

If I am correct, more people than ever are treating their life adult life as being lived through stages of adult development. For most of these last thirty years I have also been a meditation teacher and have taught and given guidance to thousands of meditation students in which I witnessed this same trend. Meditation students recognize that through conscious practice they can greatly enhance how skillful they are in moving through the constant changes of life and dramatically reduce the suffering and un-satisfactoriness that so characterize modern life.

Without hesitation I encourage every person to open themselves into a greater consciousness of their values, choices, and how they respond to changes and transitions in their life. It is not always easy, or even seemingly productive at times, to choose to live a mindful, conscious, and intentional life. In the end though, we discover there is a much deeper connection to life just waiting for us to finally notice its presence and open our minds and hearts to receive what it offers.