Change Your View on Change
When we’re young, everything is new. We’ve tried no foods before. We’ve played no games yet, we’ve made no friends. New things and experiences are a part of our daily lives, and we welcome them with excitement and curiosity.
Each new school year brings new classes, new teachers, new friends. Every day holds many lessons.
As we get older, we graduate from school, we make long term friends, we discover foods we like and places we like to visit. Change becomes less and less a part of life, as routine sets in.
Routine can feel secure. It’s familiar, we know what to expect.
But, “routine” is not the way the world works. The world is constantly changing. People change. You change. To stay in the same routines may mean that something that once allowed happiness, now only allows frustration. It’s the same, but everything else has become different.
If you’ve become set in certain ways, a consequence is that your view on change…changes.
We get into a thought pattern that we like what we have, and wouldn’t want to risk trying something else, in case it’s worse. Well, sometimes it is worse. But sometimes it’s much better. And sometimes, we don’t truly like what we have, we’re just used to it.
Becoming as curious and comfortable with change as you were when you were a child is a major life skill. A lot of anxiety can build over, “what if something awful happens?” That anxiety can become worse than the worst awful thing that could happen.
How to get comfortable with change again:
Do you ever hear someone complain about a friendship, relationship, or job? Then, if you ask, “Well, why are you there?” The answer is usually, “I’ve been there for 20 years.”
How does this make sense?
20 years prior, that friendship, relationship, or job was probably unrecognizable to what it is today. So what brought that person into that circumstance does not exist anymore, yet there they remain, living on the habit of a long lost memory of happiness.
Change in a relationship, friendship, or job doesn’t even necessarily mean dropping it like a hot potato. It can mean changing one’s attitude. It can mean communicating with the other person or people and starting with, “I’m not happy anymore.”
Most people want to be happy. We all have different perspectives. By openly communicating with someone about unhappiness, you both can decide honestly to work together to improve the relationship, or mutually realize that it’s just not something that’s compatible anymore, and part separate ways in peace.
Change is natural. Change is good. Change goes in one direction or the other. Make certain your changes go in the direction of “better,” as that’s the one that both leads to, and maintains happiness.
By Doe Zantamata
Author of:
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| Remember when you used to get really, really excited about trying new things and seeing what you could do? Do that again. ~Doe Zantamata |
When we’re young, everything is new. We’ve tried no foods before. We’ve played no games yet, we’ve made no friends. New things and experiences are a part of our daily lives, and we welcome them with excitement and curiosity.
Each new school year brings new classes, new teachers, new friends. Every day holds many lessons.
As we get older, we graduate from school, we make long term friends, we discover foods we like and places we like to visit. Change becomes less and less a part of life, as routine sets in.
Routine can feel secure. It’s familiar, we know what to expect.
But, “routine” is not the way the world works. The world is constantly changing. People change. You change. To stay in the same routines may mean that something that once allowed happiness, now only allows frustration. It’s the same, but everything else has become different.
If you’ve become set in certain ways, a consequence is that your view on change…changes.
We get into a thought pattern that we like what we have, and wouldn’t want to risk trying something else, in case it’s worse. Well, sometimes it is worse. But sometimes it’s much better. And sometimes, we don’t truly like what we have, we’re just used to it.
Becoming as curious and comfortable with change as you were when you were a child is a major life skill. A lot of anxiety can build over, “what if something awful happens?” That anxiety can become worse than the worst awful thing that could happen.
How to get comfortable with change again:
- Have a look at your current status. Do you do the same thing, day in and day out? How long have you been in your self-imposed Groundhog Day?
- Make small changes. Try new restaurants, new recipes, take a different route home from work. Go to a local park or venue that you’ve never been to before on a day off. Learn to become comfortable with doing things a different way in your daily life.
- Talk yourself into it. Even as children, sometimes we need a little encouragement to try something new. That slide at the park was probably intimidating the very first time. Give yourself this encouragement, and when feeling a little anxiety about trying something new, think of what’s the worst that could happen….most often, it’s just that you won’t like it. In which case, you’ll know not to do that again.
Do you ever hear someone complain about a friendship, relationship, or job? Then, if you ask, “Well, why are you there?” The answer is usually, “I’ve been there for 20 years.”
How does this make sense?
20 years prior, that friendship, relationship, or job was probably unrecognizable to what it is today. So what brought that person into that circumstance does not exist anymore, yet there they remain, living on the habit of a long lost memory of happiness.
Change in a relationship, friendship, or job doesn’t even necessarily mean dropping it like a hot potato. It can mean changing one’s attitude. It can mean communicating with the other person or people and starting with, “I’m not happy anymore.”
Most people want to be happy. We all have different perspectives. By openly communicating with someone about unhappiness, you both can decide honestly to work together to improve the relationship, or mutually realize that it’s just not something that’s compatible anymore, and part separate ways in peace.
Change is natural. Change is good. Change goes in one direction or the other. Make certain your changes go in the direction of “better,” as that’s the one that both leads to, and maintains happiness.
By Doe Zantamata
Author of:
