When Transformational Change Comes for You…

8 signs to help you recognize it’s happening, 6 ways to get on board with it, 5 actions to supercharge the result

Photo by Igor Karimov on Unsplash

Oh, I see. Here it is again. Another unsettling period in my life where it feels like it’s ‘one thing after another’ happening for no clear reason. And it won’t let up. Looks like life is once again throwing a wrench in my world. My usual coping isn’t helping. Life is showing me I’m actually not in control and that I’m not as smart as I think I am. I reluctantly recognize this as change coming, and I know what happens next. I’ll be haunted by a nagging sense of uncertainty, addled with a crippling hesitation, and locked into an excruciating awkwardness that I just can’t shake.

This is change.

It’s what life does. Everything is in a continual flow of reorganization, breaking apart and recombining, shifting, expanding and evolving. Life is always in flux. I don’t have to make the case for the reality of relentless change. You know this. We’re all in it. And sooner or later, many times throughout your life, you are personally affected.

Change is as unpredictable as it is constant. But there is a distinction to be made here. There is change that is the constant of life, the result of continual flux. Then there is big, paradigm shifting change.

OK…I can choose to do this differently this time. Fighting it will only drag it out. I can stop trying to manage it or make it go away, because I ‘don’t feel ready’, or it’s ‘not what I want.’ I can be a part of how this goes. Besides, something is being created and I’m curious to see what … this time.

The alchemy of Big Change

Big change is transformational change. The kind that countless people have looked back on, after a difficult and tumultuous time in their lives, to see that everything actually turned out for the better. That the experience actually made them stronger, happier and more fulfilled.

Yet our nature is to resist change. There is plenty of research pointing to why we do this. The simplest answer is fear of the unknown. On the physiological level, the brain interprets change as a threat and rallies to protects us from…