I was sitting in the audience at a conference last week and the presenter blindsides us with “I want everyone to stand up and introduce yourself to someone you don’t know and tell them one interesting fact about yourself”.
Straight away that voice in my head launches into panic mode, my body releases a burst of adrenaline and I feel a slight tightening in my stomach. I had thought I was just going to sit there and listen and all of a sudden there’s a change of plan, something unexpected had been thrust upon me and I was being pushed outside my comfort zone.
Heraclitus once said “Change is the only constant in life”. At its most basic level change is continuous in relation to time… every second of every day is different. But there are also bigger changes that impact our lives, some foreseen, some unforeseen, some positive, some negative, some under our control and some out of our control… We might get a promotion at work or we might get made redundant.
The presenter at the conference who pushed me out of my comfort zone by making me go and speak to a complete stranger at a moment notice was using the exercise to encourage us to embrace things that might feel uncomfortable, because as he put it “All good things come from change, but not all change is good”.
Here’s the thing, change is going to happen and that’s a good thing because it will lead to good things. BUT there will also be the not so good things! Therefore we must learn to develop our relationship with change so we embrace the good and the bad, so we can step forward into it with confidence rather than shy away from it.
So what can we do to develop our relationship with change? Well the first thing we need to do is distinguish between change we can initiate and influence and change that we have no control over. This is eloquently summarised in the serenity prayer:
God grant me serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference.
Lets firstly look at the change we can create that will positively impact our lives. When I reflect on this I often wonder how many opportunities I might have missed out on in my life because I didn’t make a phone call, start a conversation with someone or pursue a business opportunity because fear held me back in the safe zone rather than allowing courage to create positive change.
We are always going to have the feelings of fear that come when we are stepping forward into the unknown. The shot of adrenaline and panicking monkey mind that I experienced at the conference are natural human reactions and they are also healthy reactions as they are the body and minds way of telling you that danger might be imminent… which could be useful if danger really is imminent, HOWEVER, the trick is to recognise the feelings, not get caught up in them, know that there isn’t any real danger and instead use it as a signal that you have an opportunity to step forward out of your comfort zone where you can create positive change in your life.
Then there are the changes that are not so good, that come out of the blue, that you can’t control… like redundancy, illness or even just a flat tyre! The key here is to recognise that we have a choice as to how we react. Once again, rather than getting caught up in the situation and allowing ourselves to be victims, we can simply ask ourselves “What would be the most empowering and positive response to this situation?”. So despite us not being able to change the situation, we can change our response.
Abraham Maslow once said “In any given moment we have two options: We can step forward into growth or back into safety”. So make sure you are consciously embracing all change and stepping forward into growth.