Change

When it is time for a change…

You hear…

You think…

“I literally have no idea what I’m doing”

“What if this all goes wrong”

“I don’t feel excited, I feel terrified!”

You say…

“Thank you” and smile….

Moving on…

This week I have moved away from a job I had been in for 7years, and I am finding the change challenging. However, any significant change of situation can be difficult, whether it is leaving a stressful job or an unhealthy relationship.  Change doesn’t have to be leaving a bad situation, just moving on to the next step of your career, a promotion, a new house, are all equally potentially stressful.

It doesn’t matter how much you’re thought about it and considered it in advance.  It doesn’t matter how much all the pros and cons have been weighed and you are sure you are doing it for the right reasons: chasing the mythical better work-life balance, more time with the family, better self-care, taking the opportunity to follow your dreams. You might be making a change on the spur of the moment, or you might have spent hours deliberating and considering your plan, it doesn’t matter.

…is not easy

Taking action and actually making the change is not easy.  There’s uncertainty.  So much uncertainty.  Loss of stability.  Letting go of the familiar.  Fear of losing touch with friends.  Fear of getting it wrong, making mistakes, of failing.  Fear of rejection.

Anxiety is normal…

These fears tap into the basic needs of every person.  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs explains that the drivers of behaviour are firstly our need to meet our basic physiological requirements (food, water, shelter, sleep etc) and close after that are the safety requirements (security, employment, financial security).  Higher up Maslow’s pyramid are belongingness (friendships and relationships), then towards the top of the pyramid, so less immediately essential, come esteem and respect, and right at the top is self-actualisation (psychological growth). 

Making major life changes such as changing employment – especially to something which is perceived as a less traditional approach to doing things with less security – threaten those basic levels of need right at the foundations of the pyramid, and thus can provoke a significant degree of anxiety.

…but that doesn’t make it easier

All of these anxieties are a normal part of change, a normal adjustment reaction, but the fact that is normal doesn’t make it easy.

In order to move on I need to learn to accept that discomfort, to accept the anxiety and sit with it, so eventually I can move through it and get past it.  It is tempting to run away and scurry back to something familiar and safe.  However, that won’t help me move forward, it would be just going backwards.  Because to move forward we have to change, however uncomfortable it is.