In many novels I read about turning points in the hero's life which had a bad influence on some persons , I think .
A turning point won't just happen and comes to you but you have to make it .. you have to stop and tell yourself that this is a turning point in your life , what's coming won't be as what passed . And get yourself ready to a lot and I mean it literally a lot of things which will try to let you back but you will overcome them only by your strong desire to that change and to see what beyond this .
A Canadian writer did just that, and it worked very well:
Margaret Atwood’s “The Journals of Susanna Moodie"
"While this work may not have been written like a novel, it does focus on a central character and is tied to a chronological sequence showing her growth ... it is especially in terms of the reversal of Moodie’s attitude towards light and darkness that Atwood charts her growth and transforms her from a typical early Victorian to a person with a distinctly modern sensibility.
In The Journals of Susanne Moodie, as in much of Atwood’s poetry (“Journey Into The Interior” is the clearest example), the exploration of a new land is also a psychological exploration of the self."
http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/cpjrn/vol02/bilan.htm
Susannah Moodie survived / changed completely / was victorious :)
True, don't trust fate to provide the turning point. But even better, I think, is to slowly but continuously improve instead of relying on creating turning points.