Why Change Seems so Difficult and How to Make it Easy (PART 1)

The courage to change

Either way, the meaning is clear. To live in a period of great change, like we’re witnessing today, takes great courage.

Times of uncertainty and fluidity require us to change and adapt. Inability to do so will consign us to a life of diminishing opportunity and increasing frustration.

When it comes to change, there is an old adage that claims that there are three types of people …

• those who make things happen;
• those who watch things happen; and
• those who wonder what on earth just happened!

Using change to create change

This implies that it is possible to thrive in rapidly changing times by being positive and proactive. In other words, adapting to change by embracing it and making it work for you to create new opportunities.

Sitting back and passively observing change happen all around you or, worse still, sticking your head in the sand and hoping it will go away, will do little to help you move forward, and may result in a nasty shock as your world gets turned upside down.

Pain and pleasure

But there is a good reason why many of us count ourselves among the last two types. Change is not something that comes either naturally or comfortably to humans.

In very simple terms, we are programmed to avoid anything that might bring us real or perceived pain and to pursue anything that may bring us pleasure.

Unfortunately, as a driving force, the former has a more powerful influence on behaviour than the latter.

Worst fears

Anyone contemplating a major change, particularly one that is thrust upon them, is likely to experience an initial and quite natural, fear-based reaction. This involves visiting what I call their ‘worst fears’.

“Whatever will become of me if X happens?”, “What if Y transpires?”, “How will I ever deal with situation Z?”

You get the idea. You’ve probably been to that dark and gloomy pre-change cave before!

Finding yourself in the fearful state that I call ‘worst fears mode’ can sometimes be so scary that it puts paid to any chance of moving beyond it. Any change that may have been considered, is abruptly cancelled, allowing one to return to the relative comfort of the status quo.

The opportunity mindset

But there is a way to transcend the worst fears black hole and emerge into the light. And that is by invoking what I call the ‘opportunity mindset’.

We achieve this by simply tweaking the “What if?” questions we pose to ourselves. The trick is to replace our mind’s obsessive focus on worst fears with a more enlightened focus on potential opportunities.

This, of course, is easier said than done.

And that is why life coaching can be so incredibly helpful.

Towards inspired action

As life coaches, we use simple, yet powerful techniques to help our clients bypass, or at least minimise, the ‘worst fears’ phase, by learning to associate change with opportunity.

By getting our clients to visualise potential opportunities in vivid detail, we prepare the groundwork for them to take the inspired action that will lead to significant change and personal transformation.

Once a person has overcome the inertia phase and taken inspired action to kickstart the process of major change, positive forces conspire to build momentum and keep the change ball rolling, so to speak.

Beware the relapse!

As coaches, we would love it if that were the end of the story as far as the change process goes. But we know all too well that there is another critical stage that most will experience in some form or other … regression, or ‘the relapse’!

In the next post I will write about relapse, why it happens, and why it is not the end of the world! I’ll share how life coaches help their clients deal with relapse, learn from the experience and go on to bring about change that is even more powerfully significant and transformational.