“Life is a journey. Enjoy the ride.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIcACPkwWe0

The road of life involves navigating change: bumps and swerves in the road to adjust to. Those bumps, you could say, give the word “change”a bad rep. However, like anything, it’s all about your timing and your mindset in that instance. The bumps could be fun, an adrenaline rush, and a break from monotony or they could be a nuisance. And, change could be an exciting escapade or it could be battles you are preparing for. When is the proper timing with a positive mindset?  When it suits you with ease and when you have some amount of control. In this blog, we’ll explore ease of change.

You may say you don’t like change. You are not good with change. And what you fail to see is that change is occurring all the time, all around you. Chances are you are adapting to it, and not even realizing it.

There is a change you make that comes easy to you and the timing is perfect for you. You’ll say, “that was easy” or not even give it a second thought. The association with “making a change” may not even appear in your brain. Was that move or action still a change? Yes. And, some changes are easy for certain people and those same changes are difficult for other people, and vice-versa.

When it’s a change, however, that may take some time, require new habits and learning, and pushes you out of a sense of complacency, and furthermore, the timing is not of your preference, you may resist it. Resisting necessary changes makes everything more difficult. This is when you say “ugh, change is awful…”

My mother had to be more self-sufficient when my father was in the hospital. He wasn’t around to keep her company while watching TV, to put the dishes away, or to make necessary decisions for them. She picked up the slack very readily. Then, I asked her to speak to someone who could offer services to them while he is recuperating, she said “I have to think about it. You know I’m not good with change.” Huh?  I pointed out to her how she had made so many changes while my father has been in the hospital.  She replied, “those weren’t changes. Those were easy.” I outlined the details of the changes she had made and then mentioned they were easy for her, and yet they wouldn’t have been easy for everyone. They were still changes.

In the previous blog, sharing or passing “the torch” with young leaders incorporated changes in an organization’s leadership planning. If you looked at either option with the lens of a natural and expected progression that was anticipated, leadership changes were a positive fine-tuning. Your energy around the subject would be that of ease. If you saw the tweaking as a disruption and hadn’t been considering succession “blueprints” and adjusting for the incoming future, the change would probably be highly negative for you. You are anticipating difficulty.

What lens do you use to determine if a change in your world is an adventure or drudgery? What’s an action you take with ease that other’s don’t, and what do you view as difficult that people around you accept with ease? Life is a journey. If you adapt the mindset that accepts the difficulty so you can more fully appreciate the easy, your easy, you can enjoy the ride.

 

The world needs more leaders and the right leaders.

If you are in a position to bring forth good change, encouragement, and growth – you want full access to your potential. Make the choices you need to be the leader that advocates change to look forward to.  That change which engages your people, improves productivity and highlights the abilities of your team members.

If you would like to have a conversation on how you can do this, contact me: Susan@SusanGoldbergLeadership.com