The longer you live, the more adjustments you have to make. It's what being human is all about. You have to deal with change, and it's not always enjoyable.
Many of us view change as potentially negative most of the time because we had some regrettable stuff we had to deal with in the past. This makes us skeptical that any change can be positive if it happens outside of our influence. It's only natural to desire control. You would probably prefer to control what happens in your life rather than deal with random events you are unprepared for. That would be a perfect world. Imagine that you were always given a say-so in what happens to you and the people you care about. All your dreams would be realized, and you would never experience a single negative transition to some unfortunate reality. While it certainly is nice to entertain a pipe dream like that for a little while, It simply isn't going to happen. The Gods will always hand you difficulties you have to deal with. Many times, you have no warning. Sometimes you see a regrettable change coming, and that's nice. In some cases, a different reality you are given is pleasantly surprising. When a change is less than enjoyable, it can be tough to deal with. My knee-jerk reaction might be to ignore it. I pretend it didn't happen. That usually isn't the best course of action; in many cases, that attitude just makes things worse. So, how do you make the most out of a bad situation? Here are five ways to better accept negative change when it can't be avoided. In some cases, they can help you give something negative and unexpected a positive spin.
1 - ADD TO YOUR SKILLS AND ABILITIES You can't be a carpenter without a hammer and some nails. Those are the basic requirements for carpentry. They're just a few of the tools a carpenter needs. If you have a traditional hammer, the kind you hold in your hand and swing with your arm, you can drive nails into wood. However, you can drive a limited number of nails every minute or hour. Get a better tool, and you can be more productive.
There are electronic and air-powered tools that carpenters use to sink nails into wood. The upgrade in the tool means driving more nails in a shorter amount of time. That spells better productivity and more money for less work. The carpenter no longer has to swing his arm. They pull a trigger, and the tool does all of the work. Use this same idea to get better at handling negative change. Add to your toolbox. Upgrade your tools. Develop new skills and abilities. Look at situations where change caught you off-guard in the past. Could you have lessened the negative impact if you had been better prepared? The more skills and abilities you have, the less impactful and difficult life events become.
2 - LEARN FROM HISTORY You see something terrible headed your way. You can't avoid it. You know it's coming right for you; all you can do is brace for the storm. As you begin wondering how you will overcome something which will probably be devastating, remember one thing. Other people have survived the same situation. Look at history. Have other people made it through a similar set of circumstances before? They probably have. Your situation could be incredibly unique. Even so, there's probably some similarity between difficulties other people have overcome in the past. They've weathered the same type of storm. They survived, and some of them have even thrived. They turned an unpredictable and initially horrible situation into something wonderful. If other people survive the negative change, you are about to face, you can too. You don't know what you can do until your back is up against the wall. Think about your own life. There have probably been times when you surprised yourself. You learned you had mental and emotional strengths you weren't aware of. That's proof you can overcome difficulties that life will inevitably send your way.
3 - ASK YOURSELF THIS QUESTION Does this situation sound familiar? There's something you need to prepare for. You aren't totally sure that you have everything needed to be successful. Maybe it's a big job interview. You really want to get this job, but, like many job applicants, you wonder how the interview process will go. What will they ask you? How should you dress? Are you going to need references from previous employers? You don't want to seem needy or desperate, but on the other hand, you don't want to look unconcerned, either. The more time you have on your hands leading up to the interview, the more damage you can do mentally. That's because we often predict terrible things in our future. Our nonstop inner critic can't seem to put a positive spin on what's possibly going to happen. We seem to imagine the worst circumstances and never the best possible outcome. The next time you're faced with some change that looks like it will be negative, ask yourself this question. "Is this going to be as bad as I am making it out to be?" Be honest with yourself. Start imagining what good things can happen. Don't just look at the negative side of things. Are you blowing things out of proportion and making them harder to deal with than they should be? You'll find that sometimes your imagination gets carried away. It convinces you the outcome will be worse than it eventually is.
4 - GET UNCOMFORTABLE Psychologists Robert M Yerkes and John D Dodson can help you cope with unexpected change.
Their research into the effects of comfort on results and outcomes was published in the Journal of Comparative Neurology and Psychology in 1908. "The Relation of Strength of Stimulus to Rapidity of Habit Formation" is the title of their paper that teaches us a couple of things about comfort. 1 – A steady state of relative comfort produces a steady and predictable level of performance. 2 – To get the best possible performance, people must step just a little outside their comfort zones. Their tests showed that you must get uncomfortable to make great things happen. It should be noted that when people were forced far away from what they found comfortable, performance dropped off sharply. This means you must take baby steps outside what you believe is comfortable to create the best reality. How can you use this to become better at accepting change which is negative and outside of your control? Get a little uncomfortable every day. Don't wait for change to appear in your life. Start taking small steps to improve the size of your comfort zone. Push a little further every day. Over time this will expand your comfort zone magnificently. It makes you much more capable of dealing with uncertain and unanticipated change in the future.
5 - REMEMBER THAT CHANGE MEANS GROWTH How tall are you? You are probably much taller than you were as a child. You grew. A lot of changes happened to you internally, physiological processes which caused you to grow taller over time.
That's a simple reminder that growth cannot happen without change. The change can be negative or positive. It might lie somewhere between those two extremes. Whatever change enters your life, it's an opportunity for you to grow stronger, more capable, and better than you currently are. Accept unavoidable change outside your control and look for ways to grow from them.
One of the few things you can control is how you respond to change. You certainly can't control everything you have to deal with. These changes are often created by people, events, and circumstances you can't influence. You are moving through your normal routine and realize you have something difficult you need to handle. You didn't plan for it. It was nowhere on your radar. This wasn't a case of unpreparedness but an unavoidable situation awaiting you around a blind corner. Even though you didn't cause this regrettable life event, you're forced to accept it. As you've probably already discovered, that will happen a lot in life.
Remind yourself that growth is impossible without change. You wouldn't be the person you are today in so many positive ways without overcoming difficult situations in the past. Your talents, skills, and abilities largely came about because of unavoidable obstacles placed in your path, not because life was easy every step of the way. Speaking of skills, developing new abilities can help you prepare for unforeseen issues that pop up in the future. Strengthening your overall skill set in any way makes you more capable. That can soften the blow when negative change enters your life. Ask yourself if you might be unduly dramatizing the situation. Is it really as bad as you're making it out to be? In many cases, we overly traumatize things that haven't happened yet. You can also learn from others. Have other people moved past the change you have to handle? If they have, that's proof that you can too. Finally, don't forget that just outside of your comfort zone is where amazing things are awaiting you. Don't automatically look at change as a bad thing. It's up to you to spin it however you like. Look for ways to turn uncomfortable change into a positive reality, and you will find that change isn't always as scary or worrisome as you think it will be.
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