A great technique recovered from the ancient texts : Zodiacal Releasing. This technique can be a perfect illustration of this concept that our life is a book, and that book is divided into different chapters. Even into each chapter, you can read different sub-chapters...
Some of them will play as major acts into the book story, other chapters are just there to describe things going on in the background. As if during those chapters, you are just either preparing yourself to the major step up or changes that are more likely to occur.
Basically, the concept of this technique is using different lot. The Lot of Fortune, the Lot of Spirit and the lot of Eros.
To calculate those lots, you can use this calculator or you can check this great book "The Arabic Parts in Astrology, a lost key to prediction" by Robert Zoller.
Technically, how does it work? Each zodiacal sign is assigned specific durations.
At the very first level, those duration are expressed in terms of years.
The second level will have those duration divided in terms in months.
The third level, in terms of days.
The fourth level, in terms of hours.
If you want to know about your general life direction, your career, you should use the lot of Spirit.
If you want to know about love and relationships, you should use the lot of Eros.
The lot of Fortune is likely to indicate body matters, health or good fortune.
Let's consider your want to see when your career might become more significant or facing some turnarounds. You need to look where your lot of spirit is located in your birth chart, you will add the number of years, months, days that relate to the sign.
After having added this amount of period, you then jump into the next sign and again, calculate the time you will stay in that period based on the next sign.
Anytime you arrive in a specific period, you will notice several things.
Is this period considered as a significant period ?
This depends on the distance of that sign with the sign where the lot of Fortune is located. If it's angular relative to the lot of Fortune, 4th, 7th, 10th sign or in the same sign of the lot of Fortune.
There are several concepts that will help you qualify how important a period could be
activated planets in the sign
when the ruler of the sign is the ruler of the lot of Fortune
when the sign is the 10th sign from the beginning of the cycle, when there is a reversal in the sequence, called the loosing of the bond
I invite you to listen to Chris Brennan podcast. It will definitely give you great insight on this ancient revived technique.