If your business has stalled or is failing, your health is declining or your relationships are unfulfilling, you can use your awareness of these situations to face the reality your resistance to change diminishes your happiness and success more and more each day.
A primary reason many people resist change is because they must change themselves. Others resist change because they focus on how hard they believe the change will be, the possible negative outcomes and fear of the unknown. Moreover, we can become comfortable with the status quo, even if it doesn’t produce happiness and success.
In focusing on the difficulties of change rather than the benefits, we prevent ourselves from exploring opportunities and taking action. Basically, we avoid change because we only focus on what we perceive as the downside.
We must embrace a more balanced perspective of change to experience increased happiness and success both personally and professionally.
Change is a reality in business, whether we want it or not. Business environments change. Economies change. Team dynamics change. Technology changes rapidly.
Life in general is about change. If we habitually resist change, we limit the potential of all that’s available to us personally and professionally.
Honest self-appraisal is essential in making a change. As you become conscious of the negative feelings and undesirable results of your choice to resist change, you can use that discomfort to propel yourself forward. Most of us reach a point where we “can’t take it anymore.” Getting really honest with yourself will help you reach this threshold sooner, saving precious time and resources in creating a reality you do find pleasing and rewarding.
If, during your honest self-appraisal, you find you’re not pleased with the way things are going in your business or life, change how you perceive change. You’ll better position yourself to take actions to improve your situation and enhance your feelings of happiness and success.
In my coaching and consulting work, I show people how their thought and behavior patterns work against what they want — how they’re actually working against themselves and the happiness and success they desire. We then develop new thoughts and behaviors that allow them to change their realities in positive ways. We focus on the reasons for making changes, the process of change and the benefits for doing so.
One example of this would be to let go a team member who possesses the skills to do the job, but whose attitude and behavior damages corporate culture, customer relations and the bottom line. If you walk into your business and feel an aversion to certain team members because of their negativity, then a change of some sort is in order. This situation is common in the business world, and it becomes more damaging the longer it’s allowed to continue.
Business owners and managers typically avoid personnel changes because of the time, effort and money involved in hiring and training a new person. They’re reluctant to face the tough talk or confrontation that can accompany letting someone go. They fear retribution, unemployment claims and being bad mouthed.
As you turn your attention from what at first appears to be the overwhelming effort involved in making changes and focus instead on the benefits, you’ll take on change with an energy that makes the process seem a lot less daunting. In other words, a major barrier to change is eliminated when you focus on how it will improve you and the situation.
Change is much easier when we choose to see it in a positive light. As we embrace change, we alter our perception of it from a bad thing to a positive thing filled with potentiality and opportunity.
Human beings are amazing, and they can accomplish great feats once they open their minds to possibility and then take action.
