Change isn’t always an easy thing, in fact sometimes it can be downright scary, but we know that at some point in our lives we have to do it. I’m talking major changes here, not minor little things. I’ve provided three tips for you on how to keep change in perspective.
You know, we all have change in our lives. Most of us detest change, dread change, feel change is a real problem to deal with. I’m talking here about major changes.
But if you take a look at the major changes in your life over the last five years, up to about six months ago, you’ll probably see that since you’ve moved away from those changes, you can see that they were really beneficial.
Difficult at the time? Sure. No one’s going to argue with you about that. Change can be tough.
But it’s important to keep change in perspective.
We’ll take an example of a change in your job. Let’s say you’ve gotten a lateral transfer. You didn’t ask for it or particularly want it, but you’ve got it. You’re learning a new job, with new colleagues, and you’re also dealing with the fact of the transfer, wondering what it will do to your career.
Now let’s look at your lateral transfer 18 months out. You’re comfortable in your position, you have good relationships with your colleagues, and you’re doing well in the job. You’re up for a promotion, and stand a good chance of moving up in the company.
If you look back from this 18-month point at the actual transfer, you can see that what you thought of as a major and perhaps unbearable change has actually become something really valuable and important in your life.
I once heard someone say that we should laugh at the things that happen in our lives that we know will be funny later. “If it will be funny later, it’s funny now.” That’s just not true. It’s not funny now, because we’re going through it now, and we can’t see far enough to think it’s funny.
We can’t always (maybe not even sometimes) look at change in the now from the perspective of the later. We can’t always see this as a good thing.
But I think we can keep things in perspective by acknowledging that this is going to look a lot different to us in a year than it does now. We don’t have to know how it will look then; we don’t have to think about it in the terms we’ll think about it then. We just have to realize, how we think about this will change.
What I am trying to get across here is that we don’t have to see the good in a situation while we’re in the middle of it, but by remembering that there will be a time when we see good, we can keep the change in perspective.
I guess the best way to do this is to realize that we almost always change how we feel about things over time. We gain perspective as we move away from the immediate situation. It always does happen, so there’s good reason to think it always will.
How can you keep change in perspective?
- Think now about changes in your life that you have a different perspective on than you did at the time.
- When you face a change, remember that it will feel different in six months.
- Keep change in perspective by not letting how you feel now become too big a deal.
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Thanks to Declutter It! for including this post in the Organize Your Life Carnival.
