What is change?
Change is a normal and inevitable part of life and we can define it as the act or process through which something becomes different.
Even if you sat on the sofa and did nothing change would still happen, turn on the news and the world outside would have changed and could still have a massive impact on you.
Change is constant and it can be happening in more than one area of your life at the same time, personal or professional. Sometimes the changes are tiny and manageable and sometimes they can be a seismic, some change is planned (moving house or getting married) and some are spontaneous or unpredictable (getting stuck in traffic or a change to the organisation at work).
It might feel uncomfortable
Fear and resistance to change are normal responses. Humans typically like predictability and routine and we have an inbuilt fear of the unknown. This is a prehistoric safety mechanism designed to keep us safe and to not take risks. But those who can adapt the fastest to change tend to cope better.
Unplanned change can cause us the most stress, we might have liked things the way they were before and we might fear losses of roles or relationships. We might experience, stress, anxiety, fear, anger, sadness, or frustration. Even if the changes in your life were planned you can still experience these feelings.
Self-awareness helps
We can manage these situations and possible discomfort by developing an awareness of our feelings, being mindful and developing resilience or ways of coping and gathering as much information that we can.
Without information, our mind will fill in gaps and has a natural inclination to catastrophise and imagine the worst outcomes, again it is part of our stress and fear response to keep you safe and in your prehistoric cave.
Hooray or Oh No
Whether we experience change as positive or negative can depend to a degree to our attitude, actions and to our predisposition.
Are you someone that sees change as an exciting opportunity to shake things up? Or are you a stickler for routine?
Some people thrive and get energy from everything being dynamic and don’t want to stay still for long and love a challenge, others find it demotivating and draining
One person’s ‘Hooray’ is an another persons ‘Oh no!’
When people around us are reacting and responding differently it can lead to us questioning ‘ why am I feeling like this’ or ‘why are they feeling like that’
To get through this period of flux it is important to allow yourself to go through the process in your own way
Knowing how you respond to change is very useful
It can be freeing just to know that there is no right way to respond to change and it is normal for people to cope and respond in different ways
It won’t just be you
Change nearly always affects more than one person and it happens one individual at a time. This means that even though the thing that changes may be the same, the way that each person responds will be unique to them and the people leading the change will be going through their own process too.
We will all have different information, feelings, concerns, outcomes, hopes and worries, sharing these can be very helpful and stop us feeling isolated and filling in the gaps with what we think is going to happen.
Your mind doesn’t like losses any more than it likes gaps when there is a lack of information your brain will try to predict or assume to complete the picture.
There will be parts of any change process that you don’t have control of but with mindfulness and awareness,
you will begin to notice that you are able to control your responses and actions, the awareness that you have of yourself will influence the strategies that you have for dealing with it.
