Change is a part of life and it is something that each one of us whether we like it or not, is going to have to deal with. From the time we are born, up to adulthood and so on, life is full of changes so it is important that we understand first of all, that we need to embrace change and know why and how to embrace change the effectively.
First of all, there is an irony of change because there are very few things that are constant and change happens to be one of those constants. So by that, I simply mean that it is inevitable that we are going to face changes in different areas of our lives whether on a personal level, our careers, families, relationships, businesses, or whatever it may be, life is full of change and so I call it the irony of change because, it is constant and guaranteed for life to throw changes at us all around. Now, change will always happen and we can choose to either embrace it or reject it.
Embracing change is simply acknowledging its existence and accepting to make the necessary adjustments to accommodate it. Some people refuse to make adjustments and others choose to live in denial about the changes that may be happening around them, so when we are dealing with embracing change, we first of all need to acknowledge it do something about it. But the first stage to doing something about change is the acknowledgement. We need to acknowledge it and then make the necessary adjustments and this takes us into adaptability.
As human beings we need to be adaptable to situations and changes. For example, you may have been living in a particular part of the world and you may have relocated to a different part of the world entirely and the new environment comes with its own set of changes so for example, if you have got kids then it could be the kind of schools that your kids would have to go to, the education system may be very different, the culture of the place may mean that all your kids may not be able to do certain things that they were used to doing in the other country or in the other region. So, how effectively we are able to adapt to change will inevitably determine the quality of the outcome that we have. If we embrace change effectively then we will get the rewards of those changes that other people may not be able to enjoy.
Embracing change gives us a chance to actually have a say in whatever change that may be happening around us. By that I mean, it gives us a voice and positions us to be able to also make decisions. For example, in your workplace maybe there has been a new takeover and now there are going to be some new changes taking place there. Now, how you choose to embrace that change is basically going to determine what happens with you in that organization in the months to come, you may keep or lose that position, or even be promoted.
There are different ways by which we are able to adapt because adaptability is a very important aspect of change. As people of value, influence and impact, when we embrace or adapt to change effectively, we get to reap the value that is within those set of changes that we may be facing. Someone else may be presented with the same set of changes and that person may decide to complain and make excuses and will therefore not reap the value that change comes with. As a person of value, influence and is impact oriented, you should rather be looking for the opportunities, value, the things that you can do to be able to maximize the value because there is value in every change.
Our attitude towards change is what is going to determine whether we are able to see this value within those changes or not. So embracing change gives you a voice, a chance and a say, when it comes to the outcome of the situation.
The other thing as well is that you hear some people say things like ‘I’m too old for this technology thing’. I’m sure we have heard that with generally people within a certain age group, I’m not going to say much about that but there are some people who even till today have not adapted to technology, they refuse to change and embrace technology and because of that they are left behind and are struggling to do very basic things such as making payments for goods and services, watch basic things like television properly, to do certain things that they are required to do with their work, as a matter of fact there are some people who have lost their jobs simply because a new technology came into the workplace and these people refused to adapt to the change to the landscape within the work, so it is very important that we decide to move away from excuses into the I can do type of posture when it comes to change.
You also hear some people say things such as ‘well what if it does not go well’ or what if I don’t like it’ or ‘but I’ve always been used to doing it this way and it’s always worked’.
There may be an element of truth to that yes perhaps it worked in the past when you used to do it this particular way and perhaps the outcome was actually substandard but you may not have known that you embracing this change, may actually bring you to a place of a much better quality set of results by changing the way you do things. For example, there are many companies that have even struggled with change and many of them sadly have lost their market share significantly and some of them have gone completely bankrupt because when other companies were making certain changes, those ones were perhaps a bit too slow to adapt to those changes or they just simply refuse to accept that some things are no longer the same or what is on the horizon is going to be significantly different to what we have been used to, an example of that is Blockbusters; Blockbusters was one of the major companies in the world particularly in the ’90s to experience the biggest boom. They were basically into game and video rentals and so on but at the turn of the millennium all of a sudden, Netflix came on the scene with its streaming services so what that meant was people were no longer watching DVDs like they used to because of the streaming services. Blockbusters struggled and as a matter of fact, when you research into that you realize that Blockbusters was given the opportunity to adapt on a number of occasions but they refuse to and made some terrible decisions and as at the year 2019, Blockbusters had moved from being one of the largest companies on planet Earth with over 1,700 branches all across the world to having one branch and this was somewhere in the US. From 1,700 to one, that is what we not having a spirit of adaptability can do as far as our longevity of success is concerned so if we are going to be a people who want to experience success in a very sustained way over several years or decades to come, one of the things that we need to master is adaptability.
Change is necessary for growth and transformation. So, the same way a fetus in a womb develops over a number of weeks, gets to the full-term and then the delivery takes place and then the delivery gives it the opportunity to now experience a whole another set of experiences based on the change that has now taken place of moving from the womb into the normal world and from that stage, the baby keeps transforming and moves from one level to the other. What that tells us is that naturally, if we want to grow and move from one level to another in terms of transformation, it is imperative that we embrace the changes that come with the seasons. Sometimes these changes come about by the environment that we find ourselves in so we need to embrace change effectively for growth and also for transformation.
Another one is that change is necessary for us to be able to tap into new opportunities. We are now in 2024 and just approaching the end of the first quarter, what opportunities are you looking to tap into, what opportunities have you missed already, and what opportunities are you going to miss in 2024 simply because you refuse to adapt simply and are stuck in an old way of doing things so it is important that we learn to adapt to change to be able to tap into new opportunities.
Another one is change is necessary for us not to be left behind. A classic example is with technology, there are many companies that are no longer in operation simply because they were not able to adapt effectively to the new changes that came. Sometimes, it could even be something as simple as a new law or regulation that came in and all of a sudden they were not able to adapt to these changes and so they were left behind.
Also change can be self-initiated or imposed on us. With self- initiated change, you choose to initiate that change because of a set of outcome that you desire but the ones that most of us struggle to deal with are the changes that are imposed on us by external forces, this could be family members, work, local or central government.
To be continued….
Add a Comment