What is change?
Change is when you do something different from what you have always done! For example, change is when you pick up your personal items at work and move to a new office, job or company. Change is when there is road construction and you have to find a new way to work for weeks or months. It is an inconvenience. It requires a readjustment of the way you do things.
Change happens when your job is eliminated! It occurs when you pack up your family and move to a new city or country. All of these situations result in feeling anxious and unsure of the future. Change is about leaving the past and moving into a new situation in life. There are a number of unknowns in the new place.
Change is an annoyance at the very least. Sometimes it creates a crisis for you. There are many levels of change along the scale from annoyance to crisis. In any case, discomfort comes into the picture – sometimes for a short- term and other times, it is long-term or permanent depending on how accepting you are.
It is the unknown that scares you. Even though you have many unknowns about the status quo, you feel comfortable with the way things are. Each day unfolds without too much instability. You may not love the status quo situation, but at least it is mostly stable for you. You may even dream of having life be different, but the discomfort of change holds you back from making your dreams a reality.
Perhaps you have been caught off-guard when what you thought was the comfortable status quo suddenly changed! When you are comfortable, you don’t think much about the possibility of change. You are busy living up to the expectations of the day.
You need to be more of the aware change around you – even if it does not affect you directly. When change happens to you, you are thrown into a state of chaos and panic. Why? Because it is uncomfortable! You have been taken out of your routine. You are facing the unknown.
As a result, you try to hang onto the past – to what was. This causes even more suffering since you will never be able to have it exactly as it was. The more you fight change, the more you suffer.
To better accept change, it is helpful to at understand the three stages of change as defined by William Bridges: Ending, Neutral Zone and New Beginning. Change begins with Ending!
The Ending stage occurs when the status quo comes to an end and you are forced to move into a less comfortable place. You are not resisting the change as much as you are trying to avoid feeling uncomfortable and having to face something new – and perhaps unknown to you at the time.
Once the wheels of change are in motion, it is difficult -if not impossible – to stop it. As you move through the change process, you begin to let go off the past and accept the present. It is still uncomfortable, but it is inevitable. It may take some time to transition to the next stage.
As you move from the Ending stage into the Neutral Zone, you will continue to assess the situation because you will not have completely accepted the reality. You can linger in the Neutral Zone for quite a while – even as you move into the New Beginning stage.
In Part 2, we will look more closely at both the Neutral Zone and New Beginning stages.
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Sherry G. Day, M.S. has been coaching leaders to maximize their potential for the past 20 years and is the author of “Strategically Transforming Entrepreneurial Potential.” She is President and Chief Learning Officer, Executive Resources-Human Potential Consultants, L.C.
