Embracing Unexpected Change   By Linda Salazar



For many people, one the greatest fears they experience in life is the changes they are faced with when they believe they are not up to the challenge. Especially when the change is sudden and unexpected.

Unexpected change, such as losing a job, death of a loved one, a natural disaster, your partner leaving you or a life threatening illness, can leave you feeling frustrated, scared, angry, stuck or even incompetent. And below all of that can be a feeling that you have lost a part of yourself that you will not be able to get back.

It’s very comfortable to live in a personal world where there are no monumental changes but comfortable doesn’t necessarily bring growth, expansion and greater opportunities to your life. And, as we all know, it’s impossible to avoid certain changes. However, in every unexpected change there is a greater gain to be had even though it doesn’t feel like it in the initial moment of the experience.

In times of such change, no matter how big or small, it is so important to watch the story your inner Gremlin starts to tell you and whether or not there is any truth in that story or if it’s just your imagination running wild because of the initial shock and fear of what you are experiencing. Once you’re aware of the story you’re telling yourself, take a deep breath, slow your mind down and come back to the present moment. Chances are, with the change you are suddenly facing, you immediately went out into the future and imagined all the worst possible scenarios!

Break down the change into bite size pieces so you’re looking at one step at a time. I realize that the bigger and more emotional a perceived negative change is, the harder it is to move through it. But the bigger truth is, you can and will move through it, because inside of you is a strength that just may surprise you. The sooner you begin the process of managing your energy on purpose around the change and take whatever actions you can to help yourself through, the easier it will be to deal with the change.

Norman Vincent Peale said, "Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all. Make a move."

Everyone of you reading this has been through some kind of change in your life, big, or small. In your control, or not. Maybe there was great fear and tremendous doubt at the time, but nonetheless, you’re still here and you made it through. It makes a difference for those guaranteed future changes, to remind yourself of changes you’ve already gotten through.

This week spend some time reflecting back through your life and write down all the changes you’ve been through that have impacted you. Then write down what you’ve learned because of those changes and how you have personally changed for the better. At the top of the paper put, My Successful Life Changes and keep that piece of paper in a safe place where it is easily accessible.

The next time you’re in the middle of an unexpected change or even one you’re considering making, read what you wrote, allowing your words to remind you of the inner strength that is always there for you to draw upon and know that you will once again discover all there is to be gained by change. On another piece of paper, in one column write down your fears around the new change your presently experiencing. In the second column write down all the opportunities that could possibly come to be because of the change. Once you mastered that change you can now add it to your list on the My Successful Life Changes paper.

I hope you have pages upon pages of My Successful Life Changes!

And remember:

"Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstances." Bruce Barton --Founder of BBDO Advertising
 

The Value of Confidence   Last night I gave a speech called “The Value of Confidence,” which was about how to mentally put yourself into a state of confidence, feeling certain of success even when your knowledge suggests you should expect to fail. Delivering a speech like this puts an extra burden on the speaker, since it must be done with absolute confidence and certainty — otherwise the audience will easily detect the in congruency.

What Do You Need To Feel Secure   One value that seems to hold a lot of people back from setting and achieving big goals is the need for security. Security is a feeling of certainty that everything is OK and that all your basic needs will be provided for. On the surface there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s great to feel secure. Abraham Maslow lists it as one of the basic human needs. If we don’t feel secure, we can’t move onto higher levels like love and self-actualization. If we have doubts about paying the rent at the end of the month, how can we possibly go after our really big dreams? You gotta feel secure first, right?

What's Your Optimism Ratio    Basically what he did was count all the positive words and the negative words in published pre-game quotes from the players and coaches, and then he calculated the ratio of positive words to negative. The team with the higher ratio was the one picked to win. There is some subjectivity in deciding whether a word is positive, negative, or neutral, but if you try it yourself, I think you’ll find that most of the time it’s fairly easy to classify words. Seligman also explains using a similar process to predict the winners of political elections.

Education Kills Fear   A great way to overcome fear is to educate your fear into oblivion.  Consider most people’s greatest fear — public speaking. Public speaking has a lot of variables — writing and organizing the speech, delivering it with confidence, vocal variety, voice volume and pitch, gestures, body language, eye contact, visual aids, achieving the speech objectives, connecting with the audience, adapting to the audience’s response, etc. If you don’t have specific knowledge of how to do these things, it will just look like a gaping void of uncertainty and overwhelm, and fear will be the natural response.

Overcoming Negative Emotions    A negative emotional state can really ruin your day. Prolonged stress, depression, or anger are clearly not conducive to high levels of performance. And the worst part is that these emotional states tend to be self-perpetuating. Working while overly stressed can lead to even more stress. Depression and worry can cause you to avoid taking the kinds of actions that will help you escape the pit of negativity. And anger can lead you to take unproductive actions you may later regret.

The Power of Now   Like most people, you probably want things. Think of three things you want (before you read on). 1, 2, 3 things.  Did you do it? Whether or not you want a spiffy car, to lose weight, a new relationship, fame, fortune or whatever, you want what you want because you believe it will make you happy. Feeling good is the bottom line behind every single goal. Even if your goal is to help other people feel good, you want to do it because it makes YOU feel good. It makes you happy.