Review whether your key relationships are season-appropriate
Some relationships that sustained you in a past season may be misaligned with your current one — and vice versa.
Why it works
People are drawn to others who share their life-stage context and developmental preoccupations. As seasons change, some relationships that were built around a past season’s concerns stop offering the support, challenge, or understanding the current season needs. Recognizing this is not disloyalty; it is an honest assessment of relational fit — and it points toward which relationships to invest in and which new ones to seek.
How to do it
- Identify your closest relationships and note which season each person is in.
- Ask which relationships leave you feeling understood and energized in your current season.
- Identify any relationships you have drifted from because of season mismatch, and decide deliberately whether to reconnect or acknowledge the drift.
- Identify gaps: which type of relationship — mentor in your current season, peer also navigating the same transition — do you most need and currently lack?
Evidence
Social network research finds that relationship quality is linked to life satisfaction, and that developmental transitions often trigger voluntary relationship reconfiguration. (observational)
The specific "season-fit" framing is a practitioner inference; relationship dynamics during transitions are observed in developmental research but not specifically as a "season-fit" variable.
Common mistake
Interpreting relationship drift during a season transition as a failure of the relationship rather than a natural reconfiguration, which produces unnecessary guilt and foregone growth.
Practice this with IX Coach
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More practices for Seasons of Life
- Identify your current season honestly
Name the season you are actually in — not the one you want to be in or the one others expect.
- Align your goals with the developmental task of your season
Goals that match what your season is asking produce energy; goals that fight the season drain it.
- Navigate season transitions — the gap is normal and necessary
The confusion and loss of meaning between seasons is structural, not personal failure.
- Match your self-care to what your current season demands
Spring requires stimulus and novelty; autumn requires depth and consolidation — what restores you changes.
- Engage generativity — the natural work of midlife and later seasons
Midlife and later seasons are calling for contribution, mentorship, and transmission — not just personal achievement.
- Write a brief narrative of your season to make it coherent
People who can tell a coherent story about their life stage navigate it more effectively than those who cannot.