Turning Your Life Around - the Inflection Point

I was brought up in a high control religion that discouraged young people from going to university and pursuing careers "in this world" as they called it. I spent my 20's working as a full-time volunteer at this organization, including 6 years working as a network engineer at one of their branch offices.

It wasn't all gloom and doom. I picked up a lot of technical skills and gained leadership experience. I also kept my love for programming alive by doing small personal projects. But after I left, I found myself 31 years old without a job or a university degree. My professional network was almost non-existent and I didn't have much in the way of accomplishments in the real world. I was depressed and reeling from feelings of regret and despair.

It took about six years to turn my life around. Looking back, I learned some lessons that I think can help others when making major life changes.

I'd like to share one of those lessons, and it's based on a concept from high school math: the inflection point of a graph. This is the point in a curve where the slope of the curve changes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWgW2nD4wGQ).

In the image below, would you say the inflection point of this graph is at A or B?

While B is more dramatic (it's where the graph seems to turn around), the inflection point is A. Point A is where something truly meaningful happens: it's where the curvature of the graph changes. Once the curvature changes at A, B is just a matter of time, it's inevitable. But notice that the graph continues going downwards after A.

I found my experience to be similar to this graph (assume the x-axis measures time and the y-axis measures visible progress). When I left the religion and restarted my life, I resolved to do three things, and documented them in my journal: 1) Read more books (especially non-fiction books) to learn more about the world 2) Get a university degree and 3) Become better at programming. I worked diligently at these things but my circumstances didn't change significantly for the better for quite some time. Many things actually got worse. For instance, leaving the religion meant losing virtually my entire social network. I was pretty broke and struggled to get my career on track. I also continued feeling depressed, and consumed by regret.

Things weren't getting visibly better, but I would remind myself: "I've crossed the inflection point." It may seem silly, but this visualization of the inflection point of a graph really helped me through some dark times. It reminded me that if I kept at it, there would eventually be material, observable changes in my life.

I think it's a widely applicable lesson because there are lots of situations where you might resolve to make positive changes in your life but your circumstances take time to change for the better or even get worse. This is because the consequences of bad decisions have momentum, and you'll still need to deal with them.

A couple examples: 1) an alcoholic may resolve to quit, but still need to deal with serious health issues 2) someone in an abusive relationship may leave but have to endure loneliness. The important thing is to not get discouraged and give up. Remember that after you cross point A, the curvature of your life graph has changed. It might take a bit of time but eventually you will reach point B, and it will be obvious that you have indeed turned your life around.