Two years ago my life changed again and the above phrase seemed to haunt me at every turn. Now my life is changing yet again and again I hear the phrase in my head. It seems to me we only consider our lives to be changing if something happens. If we simply live day to day in a constant manner we perceive there to be no change. However when I think about it – life is constantly changing. We change – even if it’s only in our age and therefore hopefully our wisdom. How often do we not learn from life? Are you wiser right now?

If change didn’t exist we would live now where we were born, have the same job for all our working lives, and visit the same holiday destinations year in year out. There would be no seasons in the year, any day or night, no growth - no life? Remember when you were 7 years old? How much have you changed since then? Change just IS. We can go with it, fight it or create it.

Do you know that in a recent survey two thirds of the UK workforce would change their careers given a chance!!!!!!!!!!!

Are you waiting for a chance? You could be waiting a very long time.

As we are approaching the end of the year and a new year looms I thought it appropriate to make ‘change’ the subject of my final newsletter of the year. Most people fear change because they are unwilling to engage in new activities or face a different life. Some people decide to make their own changes; others react to change as it happens. How we react to change is the important thing. And we do have a choice. We can resist, we can reluctantly go with the changes or we can create our own options and solutions to the changes. People tend to resist change because they fear the unknown, have a lack of information, feel threatened, fear failure and have a reluctance to let go.

Everything can be taken from man but the last of the human freedoms – the ability to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances – to choose ones own way’
- Victor E Frankl

Change is all around us. Everyday the world is changing socially, economically, environmentally and technologically. We can see, hear and feel the turmoil of these changes. These changes bring around changes closer to home.

In M Scott Peck’s book – ‘The Road less Travelled’ he tells of the young woman who shuts herself away and has no friends. Apart from going to work and Church on Sunday she stays in with the curtains drawn. Life is hard and she has been hurt. She has experienced change in a big way – as we all do. Her response is not to live fully and as a result she doesn’t live at all. Perhaps she has been hurt in love, let down by someone, deserted or betrayed. Very few people escape true pain in their lives. Without the pain we cannot know how great pleasure can be. Love is like this. If we dare to love a person, a pet , even a plant it will die eventually and we will feel pain. Dare to trust and you may be hurt. Dare to love and you may be rejected. Depend on someone and they may let you down. Or you may choose to do none of these like the young woman. You choose to avoid pain and you choose to not live.

Whether change ‘is done’ to you through relationship break down, divorce, redundancy, bereavement, promotion or a new job – (and all the other ways you experienced) or you create the change - new job, moving house, new lifestyle, marriage etc you go through a cycle of emotions as described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her change continuum.

The Change Continuum

Denial - Anger - Bargaining - Depression - Acceptance - Move On

Denial – We block it out and pretend it’s not happening
Anger – Then we get angry and rage and try to control the situation
Bargaining – Then we offer platitudes and promises and try to make a deal.
Depression – Our bargaining goes unheeded so we begin to feel helpless. We shut ourselves away emotionally and mentally. This is our healing time and we must go through this
Acceptance – Moving out of being depressed we see the light and realise that life moves on. We stop fighting reality and are free to move on sadder and wiser but STRONGER. ‘ What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’ – Friedriche Nietzche
We Move ON – Come out the other side and see the positive in what happened. There will be at least one.

We all move through the cycle at different speeds. We can go back and forwards within the continuum several times, and eventually we do come out the other side.
I believe how we react and approach the change that we are facing effects how quickly we move through the continuum. We must feel the feelings and we must take time to grieve. But it is possible to come out the other side enriched.

Stimulus - (Choice) - Response

Between the event and your response you have the choice as to how you respond. I can hear the cries of disagreement already. ‘I can’t choose how I respond when someone hurts me or frightens me or upsets me!’ My answer to you is ‘You can.’ We are never what happens to us. We are always are responses. Exactly how you can begin to do this now, is a whole newsletter in itself, so we’ll keep the lengthy explanation to the New Year. For the moment, just suspend your disbelief and you may wish to consider how can you choose your responses in any given circumstance. And you can pay attention to all the different ways you discover this is easy to do. What is possible in your life? This is your future.

‘Just a time within a time
Just a scheme within a scheme
A little world within a world
Just a dream, just a dream
And now I finally found my way…’
- Fleetwood Mac

Nurture a Huge Self Belief – Self belief is the greatest asset you have. Make your self belief as high as the life you want to live. This is what will enable your future.

Take responsibility & Create Your Own Options for Action – Don’t be one of the two thirds who would change if given a chance! Be proactive. If you could do anything in this situation what would it be? And what else? And what else? Look at the situation from all angles, from someone else’s point of view and then pretend it’s five years time and look back to now. How does it look in all these other perspectives?

Get Deciding! Now you have all the information, you have planned for the worst and have all your options worked out, you can begin deciding what you will do as the situation unfolds. You have the choice so you have control over you – no one else is controlling you.

Hold Your Positive Intention and Think Like a Winner. Know where you are going and remember it . Hold your goals and outcomes in your head and your heart. Turn every result into a learning point. Fear of failure is the chain that binds you. Take risks. Be prepared to lose to win. Don’t recognise failures. Re-pattern them into a learning curve. Don’t wait for outside approval. Approve of yourself and acknowledge it. (To receive a copy of the Fear of Failure newsletter click here - info@goldeneggtraining.com and put Failure Newsletter as the subject.

Try the following exercise

Choose an experience that you see as a tragedy now. One that you are willing to see differently.

Now list 10 things that are positive about it. Consider positive changes in you, other people etc.

Count your blessings.

Remember the caterpillar in the title of this newsletter? Well he was changing big time. From the change that happened he was transformed in to a beautiful and liberated butterfly. He went from crawling on a leaf to fluttering wherever he chose to go. He was a creepy crawly and is now the object of admiration and wonder.

Which do you choose to be the caterpillar or the butterfly?

Fly long and high and stop to smell the flowers….