Embracing Change

One of my core beliefs is to always embrace change. It’s a powerful belief to cultivate. It creates a world full of opportunity, excitement, new relationships, evolved teachings, adventurous experiences, and new revenue streams, just to name just a few possibilities. I get excited just thinking about it!

In fact, whenever you have strong feelings, you can bet that there is change at the center of the cause. That’s because change is the presence of energy powerful enough to make things happen. Embracing change is how you allow yourself to work with that energy, to modulate it, and maximize its benefit to you.

What happens when you don’t embrace change? When you look back to the times you were stuck, when you were at your most frustrated, when your outlook was at its bleakest, you were resisting change, ignoring or unaware of changes, or were affected by changes beyond your control.

Sometimes we spend huge amounts of energy to fend off changes we can prevent, just because we’re uncertain or afraid of what life will look like after that change takes place–even if the changes are inevitable, and even if we know they are.

Sometimes changes occur in our personal or professional environment that we are unaware of, or think we’re not subject to, but our usual procedures yield unusual and unpredictable results.

And still other times we grapple with loss, a type of change which requires that we mourn, that we appreciate and measure what we have lost and must now do without. By doing so, we learn something of what we need, and this gives us a direction to move in. If we don’t know we’ve lost something, we don’t take inventory and we don’t mourn, and we fly blind until we make it clear to ourselves, sometimes dramatically that something is missing.

As you see, our relationship to specific changes and our attitude toward change as an important part of life are crucially important.

When I coach others and get coached, embracing change is a big part of the conversation. When you set goals, you are setting a destination that will embody a key change, and a course that will involve making many smaller changes. Many people early in their coaching journey must admit to themselves that their choice of goals–and their success in reaching them–are limited by an unspoken unwillingness to or fear of change. They’re driving with their parking brake on!

There’s no difference between embracing a coachable mindset and having a constructive attitude toward change. Taking feedback and making the changes in your attitudes and approach necessary to succeed is what being coachable is. When you are more committed to achieving your goals than you are to resisting change, when you embrace change and learn to welcome the energy and opportunities it offers, you are well on your way to a lifetime of success.

So the next time you are presented with change, instead of being anxious, be excited. Instead of being negative, find the positive. Instead of thinking, “This sucks!” ask yourself, “How can I embrace this opportunity to change?”

Fear of change blunts our creativity and blinds us to possibilities. Ignoring or denying change puts us at odds with the opportunities that truly exist. Embrace change. You'll be able to see both the obstacles and the opportunities, and once you can do that, you will be able to chart your course to success and make your way to the life you want for yourself.

Sincerely,

Dave