Career - Cycles in my career

Have you noticed patterns in your life and now use them to understand your current self? Over the years I've noticed a pattern in my career and roles and, as you may expect if you've worked with me or read my blog, I've drawn a picture to describe it.

My goal is to work mostly in a level of personal challenge ranging between stretch, comfort, and recharge. Occasionally this stretches higher or lower than that range and that's fine. It it's at the extremes for a longer period then it can be a problem.

Over that I've drawn a blue and a purple 's-curve' lines.
Blue is the core role. Initially I get the desired challenge from it. Over time it gets easier and the challenge reduces. I seek to get that challenge back by supplementing it... That's the Purple line! I increase the challenge on myself through a common number of ways...
- I innovate! I explore! I learn! I experiment! I solve problems!
- I look for 'plus ones' of additional activities or responsibilities in work.
- I increase my challenges outside of work... I learn, I do more hobbies, I speak at more conferences or blog more, or any number of things.
- I increase my workload so I feel stretched and challenged... but it's still doing the same work and that 'fix' only works for a finite time.

These are repeatable patterns that have happened through my working life. The timings vary but the pattern remains the same.

I've never heard others talking about any patterns like this and wondered if others see it, or other patterns, in their lives too? Or am I just a bit weird? 😁