Have you ever felt change was happening to you and there was nothing you could do about it?

Did you find a way to handle it or let it run its course?

The well-known saying ‘change is the only constant in life’ has no doubt been felt by us all. Given this, it can be helpful to understand your own approach to dealing with change and whether it works for you. This article shares my own experience of recent change and how it has provided me with a 4 letter acronym for how to handle the next change that I feel needs to be handled. As a result, I hope that you may also find it useful to create your own.

8 weeks ago I came down with a cough and cold. Nothing unusual in that. We all get them at this time of year. I thought I was pretty fit and healthy, eating well and playing regular sport however 4 weeks later the cough and cold were still lingering. This led to an inner ear infection and something I now know to be called labyrinthitis with symptoms of nausea and vertigo. I found myself really debilitated not being able to drive or work or even walk in a straight line. For someone who likes to go for walks daily and to run and play sport, this was difficult. 4 weeks later I still had it although somewhat improved.

As I watched myself become increasingly frustrated, I reflected on what was happening to me and how I had tried to get through a change that had landed on me without notice. There were 4 elements:

1. CONTROL: I realised that I had at first done what I always try to do when change is imposed on me – CONTROL it. In this case, that meant getting to speak to a doctor so that I could be prescribed some medicine to control the symptoms. It also meant data gathering. When I feel I don’t know information relating to the change I feel less control. Gaining some understanding about the change and what to expect enables me to feel I am more at cause rather than at effect which calms anxiety. In this case, I googled ‘labyrinthitis’ and, as the days went by, found more and more people I knew who knew someone who’d had it and could let me know how long it took to go, if they had any lasting symptoms etc.
2. ACCEPT: The second thing that I have had to do, which is not as natural to me is to ACCEPT; accept that I can’t decide when this will be gone, accept that I can’t work as hard as I normally do, accept that it is ok to take a 2 hour nap in the afternoon if that’s what my body is telling me, accept that it is ok to reset expectations with clients and customers despite wanting to deliver what I’ve said I will deliver. Once I stopped struggling to control everything and accepted I felt a degree of peace which in itself will probably support my recovery. As I reflected on acceptance versus control I was reminded of the Serenity prayer by American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. It’s the wisdom to know the difference that is the tricky bit. I am expecting that to be a life-long journey but awareness that I need to look out for it is a good start!
3. LEARN: I don’t believe that we can have good outcomes with change if we approach it exactly the same way every time. While it might work for me broadly to try to work out how I can gain some control and then to think about what I might need to accept, I’ve found that change doesn’t impact you as an instantaneous, one off hit – a given change may impact over hours, days or weeks and you can control one element and then find another pops up. It’s important to reflect regularly about how you are feeling, how what you are doing is working for you or not and to make adjustments. Reflective learning enables adaptability to best be in flow with the change rather than butt against it.
   
4. MARK success: Instead of taking for granted what is going right as you handle the change, note when something you are doing is working and pat yourself on the back. This helps to provide markers that you are making progress when otherwise it can feel that you are not.

In summary, my personal change acronym is CALM:

• C = Control: Find ways to take some control over the change imposed, even if at first that is just to gather data to better understand it
• A = Accept: Recognise what must be accepted in order to flow with the change, conserving energy to spend where it can make a difference
• L – Learn: Know that every change is different and that reflection regularly helps to make adjustments
• M = Mark Successes: Progress can feel elusive so make a point to note successes to keep up motivation

This is helping me through my current change. If you reflect on a recent change you have experienced, what would your personal change model be?