"Every situation, properly perceived,
becomes an opportunity. . ."
-- Helen Schucman and
William Thetford
Lately I've heard a number of situations where something has changed that seems to have been beyond the control of the person affected. This caused me to think about change, circumstances, and our responses to these changes.
It's easy to be frustrated (wanting something to be something it isn't), but what I have been finding is that the more excited I get about the changes even when I haven't got a clue what is coming next, the better everything goes. Now, I have to practice on purpose, because I wasn't taught this growing up. In fact, I was taught to respond poorly to change and that change always works against us and that there is good luck and bad luck and so on.
Often it is someone else creating a problem for you, such as, someone on your team is out ill for an extended period. This kind of situation can cause even more frustration because it isn't happening directly to you, and then it is at the same time.
Jack Canfield in, The Success Principles, talks about that in Principle 31: Embrace Change. He has a formula that he teaches to people going through unexpected changes. The formula is E + R = O. As in the case of someone on your team missing in action, E is the inevitable aspect that the change exists. R is your response to the situation, and O is the outcome. So it is Event + Response = Outcome.
The obvious key to the formula is our response or reaction and it is what creates our outcome, not the event. The event is sort of benign at this point, but the reaction or response can be healthy or toxic.
As I have realized over many years that most of the things I worry about don't come true, and that things generally work out well regardless of how they seemed at the beginning, then I can begin to practice more often in purposely responding more positively to a change--even though I have no information yet to base that on. It is sort of like taking it on faith. Now, I am slowly practicing getting excited about a change--even losing a client or some such event--because that event could easily turn into a very positive change by allowing more time to spend on a better client, or other scenario.
In fact, there has been significant support that getting excited instead of a negative reaction is the perfect thing to do, and I've seen many of the changes turn out to be the best thing that could have happened.
"Change Brings Opportunity" -- Nido Qubein
Spread Some Joy Today--Allow yourself to get excited about changes. You can start with the easy ones. Find some joy in it.
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