Based on life story interviews with five women teachers, the current paper provides insight into the relationship between externally mandated change and teachers' self-renewal, as well as into the context facilitating this kind of association. Interestingly, the decision of the Ministry of Education to modify the teachers' area of teaching was given a positive response by the teachers in this study, despite their fear and anger in the initial stage of the mandated change implementation. This response seems to promote their self-renewal, which encompasses the discovery of their latent potentialities, an increase of their self-concept, energy replenishing, professional updating and innovative behavior. Biographical characteristics such as emotional commitment are subjectively connected to their self-renewal. Implications for further research are suggested.