When life throws you a curve ball
Don't run, learn how to catch it.
“The only constant in life is change.” -- Heraclitus.
Change happens and it’s not always the easiest thing to deal with … like when you switch jobs or careers, or move to a new house in a new neighborhood, or take up a new hobby such as playing guitar or learning to fly an airplane.
The truth is humans are hard-wired to resist change. Even hate it.
But you don’t have to see it this way, especially if you recognize that change is really a learning process.
Scientists have been studying this process for quite some time. In fact psychologists Don Kelley and Daryl Connor looked specifically at the emotional stages we go through when change happens.
They found there are five separate stages:
1. Uninformed optimism
This stage is the most exciting stage. You imagine the benefits of the new thing you’re learning or but have not experienced any of the costs. You see all of the benefits of the change and none of the downside. You are full of optimism.
2. Informed pessimism
As you learn the reality of what it takes to change, those positive emotions you experienced in stage 1 quickly sour. Pessimism starts to set in. Here, the benefits don’t seem as real, important, or immediate, and the costs of the change is apparent. People question if the change is really worth the effort. You start looking for reasons to abandon the effort. But it gets worse.
3. Valley of despair
The lowest point of the emotional cycle is entrance into the valley of despair. This is when many people give up. The pain of change is felt and the benefits seem far away and unimportant. The quickest way to end the discomfort is to quit and go back to the way you did things before the change was introduced. The past doesn’t seem so bad at this stage.
If you quit here, you end up back at stage one and will have to start all over again. However if you keep going, things get better. Much better.
4. Informed optimism
The fourth stage is informed optimism. The possibility of success increases and you are back in the positive emotional zone. The benefits of your actions are starting to bear fruit and the cost of change is feeling worth it. The key here is not to stop but keep going.
5. Success and fulfillment
Success and fulfillment is the final stage of the emotional cycle of change. Here, the benefits of your new behaviors are fully experienced and the cost of change is perceived now as worth it. The actions that were once difficult and uncomfortable are now routine.
If you were to plot those stages on a chart, it would look like this:
So the next time you have to make a change in your life … whether it’s forced upon you or voluntary, remember, it’s only temporary.
Awesome Quotes by Awesome People
“Those who cannot change their minds, cannot change anything.” - George Bernard Shaw