Embrace Change and Let the Magic Happen

An interesting observation

It was a Sunday afternoon. I was enjoying time with family and friends over a braai, preparing a few boerewors rolls. At some point the discussion turned to the topic of change. One of my deeper-thinking friends ventured an interesting observation:

“Some people walk through life with their heads down, deliberately choosing to remain oblivious to the changes happening around them. Others walk with their heads up, eyes constantly scanning the environment for the next opportunity.”

His words took me back to my corporate days and my time as project manager for the introduction of a revolutionary new commercial vehicle refuelling system in South Africa.

The work was both exciting and challenging and — thanks to the inspired efforts and resilience of my team — the system is in common use today.

Stubborn resistance, then inspiration

But there were days at the height of the project when we found ourselves confronted by stubborn resistance, often from the most surprising quarters. Countering that was a level of support from the more progressive-minded types, that I can only describe as relatively meek.

Nevertheless, when the going gets tough, much-needed inspiration can be forthcoming from the most unexpected sources.

It was during a particularly testing period on the project that I stumbled upon a quote. It made me sit up and take notice, thanks to how well it hit the spot. I shared it with my secretary, with a request to have it printed in large format and tastefully framed for mounting on the wall of our project room.

Here’s what it said:

“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones.”

Let me invite you to guess where this quote originated.

You might think it was penned by a corporate consulting guru like Tom Peters or Tim Ferris, a self-made billionaire like Richard Branson or South African-born Elon Musk. Or perhaps it was the work of a politician like Barrack Obama, who fought tirelessly to implement a new health care dispensation in the United States.

All of these would be very plausible contenders — but way off the mark, nonetheless.

The passage is attributable to a gentleman you may have heard of named Machiavelli. In fact, he wrote it quite some time ago. The year 1513, to be exact!

It seems that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Self-protection mechanism

And that’s true when describing the way in which people generally react to change. It is human nature to resist it.

It might be more accurate to say that, when confronted with an alternative that has an uncertain outcome, it is human nature to seek to preserve the known, or status quo.

The reason can be traced to a deeply rooted self-protection mechanism that is responsible for the survival of our species; a mechanism that was particularly relevant in the hunter-gatherer days when man lived in caves and faced danger from nature at every turn.

Just as they are now, people then were driven by two primary impulses — the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain. To our ancestors, the former involved the provision of food, warmth, and procreation, while the latter meant escaping being dinner for some man-eating predator.

As it is more directly connected with survival in the moment, the avoidance of pain is a somewhat stronger motivational force than the pursuit pleasure. Fortunately, nowadays, we seldom find ourselves in the position where our immediate survival is at stake, so the concept of ‘pain’ has evolved to take on a different connotation.

Change and perceived emotional pain

The ‘pain’ we try so hard to avoid today is more likely to be psychological, or perceived, than physical in nature, like the emotional discomfort that results from feeling embarrassed, experiencing a ‘loss of face’, feeling like a failure in one’s personal or business life, and so on.

It’s important to understand that the ego is the custodian of our persona — the carefully cultured identity that we present to the world. And, when we are confronted with change, it is our ego that jumps to the persona’s defence. Change has unpredictable consequences, that might very well include ‘pain’, so our risk-averse ego resists it, preferring to stick with the familiar, or status quo.

Think about the last time you were presented with an opportunity that represented, or required, significant change. If you’re like most people, you probably experienced a brief rush of excitement before your thoughts turned to ‘worst fears’ mode, leaving you to contemplate the ‘pain’ that you perceived might result from the change.

Unless you were able to stop it in its tracks, the vicious cycle of disempowering thoughts, disempowering emotions and more disempowering thoughts that ensued, may well have resulted in you choosing to avoid the perceived pain by forgoing what might have been a golden opportunity.

This explains why so many people go through life ‘ploughing the same old furrow’ so to speak.

As my friend so eloquently put it, they keep their heads down and stick to the tried and trusted, never daring to raise their heads lest they run the risk of change inherent in the amazing opportunities presented to them.

How to embrace change

To embrace change, and all the potential that doing so can unlock, you need to understand and appreciate your inbuilt self-protection mechanism for what it is. Then you need to know when and how to override it.

When you find yourself confronted with change and getting sucked into ‘worst fears’ thinking, remember that it’s just your old caveman protection mechanism kicking in. Understand that the chances of your worst fears materialising are really quite tiny and even if they do, this is unlikely to put your survival at stake!

So, thank your ego for its advice, chuckle inwardly, turn your attention to the amazing outcomes that may result from grasping this opportunity and — if it intuitively feels right — embrace the change and just do it!

How thoughts create your reality

In Part Three we’ll visit the concept of creating your own reality in more detail. But a quick preview is appropriate here.

Imagine that your subconscious mind is a super-computer. It exists to serve you by researching and finding ways to bring into your reality the life experiences you most desire.

The super-computer is programmed to take its instructions from your thoughts and, by extension, your imagination. In other words, it interprets that which you think about with the greatest clarity and consistency, to be your desired state, and it works tirelessly to bring that about.

By embracing change and focusing your thoughts and imagination on the desired outcome associated with the opportunities that the change presents, you are priming your super-computer to find a way to make it happen.

Change and defining moments

When you reflect on those times that you embraced significant change, opened yourself to the opportunity it presented and dared to grasp it to embark on a new and exciting growth path, you begin to recognise these special moments for what they truly were …

Defining moments in your life.