How are you dealing with change? What’s your go to?
Do you hide under a pillow and wish it away? Do you embrace it with a giant bear hug and skip into the sunset of new opportunity? Maybe like me, you’re somewhere in between.
My oldest daughter struggles with change sometimes; things that are outside of our regular routines can throw her through a loop. And the fear of that change in normalcy, or life as she knew it can really rattle her. We work through this routinely, and I’m confident that we’re slowly growing her muscle of resiliency. One of our first experiences with this was when Jordan lost her first tooth.
She wiggled and jiggled that tooth for what felt like weeks until it was nearly hanging there. We talked to her about pulling it out – and the fear that she felt due to what she thought was going to be the most imminent and intense pain in her life to date was overwhelming to her. There were tears. So, many tears. And there were bribes – extra cash from the toothfairy was likely, a sweet treat, an option to have someone else pull it for her, the promise that it really wasn’t going to hurt… Nothing moved this baby tooth from point a to point b, until she was ready. Change is hard.
One evening it happened. She was wiggling – and it fell out in her hand. It was the most anticlimactic experience, ever. And all of that pain and fear she dreaded, didn’t even come into play.
The How in Dealing with Change
We do that with change sometimes too, don’t we? We worry and procrastinate; we hide from what needs to happen – even things we really want to make happen.
I’ve found that prepping for change is critical to making the result we’re after, actually happen. Think about that big goal you want – the promotion at work, your emergency savings fully funded, last of the baby weight made history, or dream vacation paid for and tickets purchased.
What if we took the time to prepare our heads and hearts for the change that needs to happen to move that goal from your to do list to your ta da list?
Acknowledging that you’re going to have to change part of your habits, or behavior is step one. Getting your head in the game is critical, friends. How bad do you want it? What’s your why? If the desire isn’t yours – and it’s just what you ‘think’ you should be doing (or worse someone else thinks you should), it ain’t going to work. Is your why compelling enough to see you through that first week, and onto the first month and beyond?
Let’s take a goal of fully funding your emergency fund.
Logical enough to most, but not a very fun and sexy goal. Stockpiling some money in a savings account that you don’t get to spend – boring.
It’s only going to work if you and your family believe this is important in your heart of hearts…to have a safety net and breathing room if something goes awry and a tree falls on your garage, your commission is cut in half for longer than expected, or you rack up some unexpected medical bills.
Peace of mind is good for your spirit. You’ll have to get your head in the game – and make some sacrifices, i.e. this year we’re going to skip our annual big vacation to finish loading up our emergency fund, and do a staycation instead. Remember your why. No real freak out mode when your kid breaks her wrists and racks up an extra $2k in medical expenses, followed by having the tree people over for another grand to keep that big one in the yard from toppling over onto the neighbor’s roof…all in one week.
As we begin to tackle those new year’s resolutions, and big goals for ourselves I’d encourage you to take some time to prepare yourself. Get your head and heart ready for a bit of change. It’ll make the change event itself – less painful, like that wiggly front tooth that ended up being no biggie.
Go from goal maker to goal taker. Get your head and your heart straight.
Journey to Influence
Thank you for joining me on my journey to influence.
