The number of times I hear people tell me they like to “embrace change”
We all know that humans predominately hate change, no matter what many people say about it.
You see, “embracing change” is a mantra often cited in companies and a worthwhile endeavour. If you don’t continually change in business, you will be left behind and eventually fail. So embracing change and then going ahead and evolving with the business landscape is a fundamental requirement for businesses. Hence, they often use this term.
For individuals, however, it is undoubtedly harder because…
Change means uncertainty.
Change means anxiety.
Change means the unknown!
This equates to an often perceived false “fear” that prevents most people from acting to their full potential.
People often shy away from the change or put it off for a later time, and that later time is often far away.
By doing this, they hope to “not have to think about it” because it has been pushed away.
However, all this tends to do is build anxiety at the back of your mind because you know you still probably “have to do that change”, however uncomfortable it appears on the surface.
So, my message here is to look at whatever change you are facing, write it down on a piece of paper, and write out what you think the change will do to you. This is so you are “defining” the change in your mind.
Then, create a list of both the positive and negative outcomes of the change so you clearly have them written down.
Finally, challenge all the items you have written down.
Ask a trusted friend or family member to review what you have written down to see whether there is any “actual evidence” for any of the items written down. Or are the items listed merely negative or false thoughts you have thought about regarding the outcome, where there is no evidence associated with the possible reality?
This type of journaling is powerful as it forces us to put down on paper our uncertainties about the change and creates some semblance of order.
This process reduces anxiety because it takes the jumbled, uncertain assumptions in our brains and puts them down clearly on paper.
Try this exercise because you may discover, as often happens, that the change wasn’t as daunting as we had made it out to be.