What to do if you're upset by change

- If you've been through change recently, especially a lot of change, rapid change, it's natural that you might feel upset or discomforted by it. After all, you had a picture of reality, a vision of where things were going. And it turns out things didn't go that way. But the truth is change keeps coming. And if we want to be successful, we have to find ways to adapt ourselves to it, to get more comfortable with change. Here are four things that you can do so that you can begin to embrace that mindset. The first is getting clear on what we can and what we can't control. The truth is there're a lot of things that you and I can't control, whether it's the weather or technological change or competitors in your industry. There are a lot of geopolitical things that you can I really can't affect. But there're plenty of things that we can control. And that could be things like making time to take walks, to exercise, to do things for yourself so that you can function at your best. It may even be something that feels small, but in the scheme of things really isn't. Like, for instance, taking the time to tell a team member or to tell your employee that they're doing a good job and to praise them for good behaviors. That's really important and can make a difference to people. Number two, it's often useful to zoom out a little bit. Change can feel very overwhelming today. Actually it's probably, a year from now, ten years from now, not necessarily going to be nearly as big of a deal. You might be pretty upset if you've had a new project thrown in your lap or you're assigned to a new boss, a new manager, but a year from now you'll probably have adjusted and adapted just fine, which leads us to number three, which is that it can be very helpful to remind yourself of times that you've been resilient in the past. The truth is we all are resilient. When you were a kid in grade school, you had a different teacher every single year. You went off to college, you got new jobs, you have done this before. It may feel unprecedented and overwhelming in the moment, but the truth is if we remind ourselves of times in the past when we've successfully been able to adapt, that can be very empowering. And fourth, and finally, it's useful for you to focus on the question of what you know and what you don't know. Now it might feel, in the moment of change, like everything is unknown. But the truth is that's not really the case. Yes, you might have been assigned to a new project, but the truth is you are working with the same team, or you're relying on skill sets that you've developed over time and are really quite good at. There's pieces that are new, there's pieces that are unknown, but there's also a lot of things that have stayed the same. And if you can remind yourself of that and keep that in focus, it helps it feel much less overwhelming. Change is coming. Change is everywhere. And it pays to get more adaptable to it. And by following these four practices, you can be sure to do that.