This post is part of the series: Jung for Leaders — The Inner Work of Moving People to Action
Also in this series: The 12 Jungian Archetypes | A Deep Dive into Jungian Archetypes | Jung’s 5 Pillars of a Happy Life
In 2007 I was owner and CEO of a fast growing private jet business called Taxijet. We had achieved every goal we had set for the business in 2005 and 2006… and in 2007 decided to aim at building a fleet of 30 aircraft under our management. I was excited and set to work to go from 16 aircraft under management to reach 30. I was seen as a successful entrepreneur by those around me.
At this time I had a lunch meeting with my friend Tony. Tony had recently been on a 1 year program to develop his executive coaching skills. Tony asked me “what is your goal?”. I proudly answered “We will have 30 aircraft by 2010.” He responded “that is great… Now imagine… you are there. You have just received your 30th aircraft. You have given a speech to celebrate… you are now coming down the steps from the stage… How do you feel?” Without a moment of thought, I quickly answered “successful!”
Over the following weeks I kept coming back to this question. I visualised myself in that moment of receiving the 30th aircraft and tried to really feel what I was going to feel. As I came back to that future moment again and again, I realised that I wasn’t feeling “successful”. I realised that the real future feeling was exactly the same as I was feeling right in this moment… a sense of “this is not really it…” I began to sense that reaching my goal would not give me the lasting sense of completion and meaning that I had hoped that it would.
I’m supposed to be happy
There comes a moment — usually somewhere between 35 and 55 years old — when the things that were supposed to make you happy do not seem to be enough. You have a good career. You’ve got the promotions. You’ve acquired some possessions… The house. You’ve got the respect (envy?) of your peers. And yet there is a slight uncomfortable feeling that something important is missing.
Jung called this the beginning of individuation.
What Individuation Means
Individuation is Jung’s word for the lifelong process of becoming who you truly are — not who your parents wanted you to be, not who your industry rewards, not who your social circle expects, but the full, authentic, integrated version of yourself.
Jung believed that the first half of life is necessarily about becoming someone that can function effectively in the world — acquiring skills, building relationships, establishing a place in society. This requires a degree of conformity. You adapt to the world’s expectations. You build a Persona.
The second half of life asks a different question. Not “how do I succeed?” but “what does it all mean?” Not “what do others need from me?” but “what do I need from myself?”
Stop Looking Outside
What gets labelled a midlife crisis is very often something more significant: an inner demand that you stop living someone else’s life and start living your own. The middle aged person who buys the flashy sports car is responding to a genuine inner call for change. The problem is that they continue to look outside themselves for the change.
3 things block individuation:
- Success The person who has been rewarded throughout their career for a particular set of behaviours finds it very hard to question those behaviours. If being decisive got you here, admitting uncertainty feels weak. If controlling everything kept things together, letting go feels scary.
- Judgement Individuation requires disappointing people. The people around you will not always welcome who you are becoming. They were comfortable with who you were.
- Fear of the messy insides… Individuation requires acceptance; it requires an openness to not force solutions. For people trained to solve problems with action and goals this is deeply uncomfortable. You must practice
Individuation Is Not Selfishness
People assume that turning inward and prioritising inner development is selfish, or “just for hippies and lost souls”.
Jung would say the opposite. A person who has not done this work is more, not less, likely to impose their unexamined fears and needs on the people around them. The unindividuated leader who cannot tolerate challenge is more dangerous than the one who has made peace with their own complexity.
Becoming more fully yourself is not a retreat from the world. It is how you show up to the world with something genuinely worth giving.
Individuation in Practice
You cannot really begin individuation until you have made something of yourself in the world. If you haven’t got a career, build a career. Build skills, relationships and become valuable and useful to your community.
Once you have become of value to the world, you can begin individuation before the crisis. It is not a concern if you do not, the crisis will come.
The only way to know yourself is through other people’s eyes. You need experiences and to begin to see that you are different from other people. You have strengths that others do not. Everything feels “normal” to yourself… it is only in sharing deeply with others that you realise what is special and different in yourself.
Seek out others who are willing to have open, honest, challenging and explorational conversations. Explore what is important to them and why these things hold such importance for them.
In my own life being part of Entrepreneurs’ Organisation and Vistage has brought these deep, challenging, difficult and meaningful conversations into my life on a regular basis. It is in seeing my life though the eyes of others that I most discover what is unique and special to me.
“The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself” — Rita Mae Brown (author)
A question: Who engages you in deep, honest, meaningful conversation about why you do what you do, how you do what you do and what it all means to you?
This post is part of the series: Jung for Leaders — The Inner Work of Moving People to Action | Next post | Previous Post
Also in this series: The 12 Jungian Archetypes | A Deep Dive into Jungian Archetypes | Jung’s 5 Pillars of a Happy Life
Conor’s Jung for Leaders Series of Blog Posts
Carl Jung spent his life exploring what it means to be human. Most leadership development focuses on skills, strategy, and behaviour. Jung explores something more fundamental: the person behind the leader. The single most-read post on this blog is about Jungian archetypes — which tells me that the readers here are not just looking for tactics, they are looking for self-understanding. This series is an attempt to go deeper into that territory.
- The Shadow: The Part of You That Sabotages Your Leadership — projection, blind spots, why your strongest reactions point inward, the gift hidden in the Shadow
- The Persona: Are You Leading as Yourself, or as a Mask? — inflation of the Persona, the cost of living inside the role, the journey back to self
- Individuation: The Journey From Success to Significance — why midlife restlessness is a call not a crisis, what blocks the journey, why it is not selfishness
- The Anima and Animus: The Hidden Energies Every Leader Needs — one-sided leadership, integrating strength and empathy, what your professional conditioning suppressed
- The Hero’s Journey: Every Leader Must Answer a Call — departure, initiation, return; the call you’re refusing; why the ordeal is the point
- The Wise Old Man: Finding and Becoming a Mentor — the archetype in myths, what mentors do that advisors don’t, the shift from receiving to giving
- The Trickster Archetype: Why Every Great Team Needs a Disruptor — Loki, Coyote, the Fool; why organisations suppress this energy; how to channel it
- Synchronicity: Paying Attention to What Life Is Telling You — meaningful coincidence, intuition as intelligence, the discipline of attention
- The Collective Unconscious: “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast” — culture as organisational unconscious, how it gets formed, making the invisible visible
- Jung’s Psychological Types: The Original Framework Before Myers-Briggs — introversion/extraversion, the four functions, the inferior function as your blind spot
- Active Imagination: A Conversation With the Part of You That Knows More — the practice step by step, why it works, how to use it for decisions
- Your Personal Myth: Living the Story Worth Living — the closing post; the unlived life; rewriting the myth; the test of a worthy story