In episode #2, we explored unexpected benefits resulting from changes in our lives that were outside of our control. In this episode, let’s dig deeper to see just how change can truly enrich our experience – in the rear-view mirror.
How many different people have you been in this lifetime? I’ve been at least five – and that’s only counting my professional lives.
In case you’re interested, there was the entertainment writer / local TV producer (ask me about my interview with Jerry Seinfeld), the year and a half I was a licensed life and disability insurance salesperson (for real), then came the very serious business journalist interviewing true titans of industry. At some point, I veered into the corporate world as a… wait for it… change agent. Let’s hop, skip and jump a few years to today: I think I’m morphing once again from a somewhat stable business owner to something slightly more creative (but you’ll have to ask my colleagues about that… or just ask me).
The point? What if I never what-iffed? I would have missed the big move from the Midwest to the Big Apple. I wouldn’t have interviewed a CEO who later became our nation’s Treasury Secretary. I would have missed out on getting to know so many amazing and inspiring clients. I’d have a whole lot fewer friends. And I definitely wouldn’t have learned to practice Reiki. (Yup. Certified Level 2.)
None of these zigs or zags were planned. Not a one. They just came… and, gazing in the rear-view, it seems I said “what if” quite often, in the sense of why not?
So, I got to thinking: Could you turn my personal “what if” habit into a deliberate practice? Let’s try it.
What if….
You could switch on a different internal circuit before responding to change coming at you from an external source?
What if your prevailing thoughts and reactions weren’t focused on your survival – your ability to earn a living, pay for food and shelter, clothe and educate your kids?
What if, like in mindfulness meditation, you could tame the “monkey mind” by acknowledging that the concerns (fears) you have are real, and then gently and respectfully put them aside to see what other more productive possibility may be hiding there?
What if instead, you could switch your thoughts over to a completely different, far more liberating and empowering circuit? (Consider the train track that branches off to a new destination.)
That last what if (and heads up… it’s a big one!) could take the form of some reflective thinking guided by a whole new set of questions. The questions I’m talking about redirect our brains from the constricting fight or flight response to a far more expansive mindset of abundance and opportunity.
What if you could train yourself to think like that the next time your company announces big changes coming your way? And every time after that?
I’ll explore what those questions could look like in the next episode… I hope you’ll join me.
Check out our new peer coaching program for new and emerging leaders called YOU LEAD. We’ll be digging into all kinds of ways to make change suck less by activating your voice, your impact.
In episode #1, we established that going with the flow has its merits… and that doing so sometimes even produces beneficial outcomes. But what if it gets even better than that?
We spend SO much energy resisting change. I wish there was a way to calculate this in concrete terms, like number of brain cells suffocated by anxiety, or dollars draining from our personal asset base, or… something other than gray hair.
Here’s an alternative way to look at it from my personal arsenal of recent experiences.
Four people I care a great deal about – and who have been within arms reach on a near constant basis for years – have LEFT ME within a few weeks. This includes my two kids and two of my very best friends. (Okay… so they haven’t left me, per se. But none of them live anywhere near me anymore, so you get what I mean.)
You would think I would be feeling pretty blue. But I gotta say… I’m kinda reveling in the new and unexpected space.
Let’s start with my newest luxuries of home and hearth:
I haven’t tripped over a twisted pile of boxers on the floor in months
Cupboard doors are – miraculously – closed, hiding whatever is meant to be hidden
There isn’t a dirty dish in the sink… unless I put it there
Not one Goldfish has crunched under my ass when I relax on the couch
My cat knows just which lap to climb into (… finally! The one who feeds him!)
Moving on from the mundane to the more meaningful:
The new rhythm of my days, nights and weeks are suddenly shaped by MY interests, MY priorities and MY intentions
There are friends I get to see that I haven’t seen since sitting on the sidelines of T-ball “games,” and new ones presenting themselves in my path
Events I’ve always wondered about in a distant way are finding a committed spot on my calendar – activity partner or no
And also, unexpected bouts of loneliness that are both deep and challenging; inviting me to get real about how I want connection to thread its way into and through my life
So now I’m thinking: What if we could drop our natural resistance to change when it happens “to us” at work and open to the world of what-ifs? What if we could somehow flip that switch from “Danger Danger” to an “Oh, that’s interesting… tell me more” position the next time the winds of change blow our way, bypassing the whole fear, anxiety and resistance cycle completely? What kinds of possibilities might cross our path when we learn to dim the fight or flight response so that our vision is made a bit clearer?
And that – what if – is the topic of my next post. Stay tuned.
Check out our new peer coaching program for new and emerging leaders called YOU LEAD. We’ll be digging into all kinds of ways to make change suck less by activating your voice, your impact.
I’m a beginner with plants. Having spent 2+ decades raising kids (and a business), I’ve decided to start slowly with the green stuff.
That’s why my best friend and I picked out this plant early last summer for my back deck.
They’re succulents, she told me. Therefore they won’t need much attention. Perfect, I thought. Bought and paid for!
For the first two months, all went smoothly with the succulents. Then a few weeks later, this happened:
Those tall protrusions that look like they desperately want to become flowers never really did. They only made the whole pot oddly asymmetrical and prone to blowing over in the wind.
But one thing they did produce: something that my beloved hummingbirds loved to feed on! Almost as much as the homemade nectar I keep stocked in the nearby feeders all summer long. (I like birds better than plants… and almost as much as my kids.)
And what does this have to do with change, you ask? I’ve concluded these 3 things from my summer with the succulents:
We simply don’t know what we don’t know. So why not stay open to possibilities?
You never really know what’s coming until it does. And even when it isn’t all that attractive, it can – and often does – pave the way for something new, exciting and better than was there before. (More weird succulent protrusions = fewer trips to buy sugar for the homemade nectar. Oh, and… will the little seeds from those un-flowers become next summer’s succulents? I believe they might.)
Relinquish control, especially regarding outcomes. The control thing was probably an illusion anyway. And oh, how much energy we waste on just the attempt to control.
That last point – the energy required to resist change? Stay tuned… it’s the topic of our next post.
What new door opened for you when you least expected it?
Check out our new peer coaching program for new and emerging leaders called YOU LEAD. We’ll be digging into all kinds of ways to make change suck less by activating your voice, your impact.
