The Time for Change is Now
When the pandemic first arrived in Asia, I remember listening to a podcast in which the host interviewed a woman who had been quarantined in her home with her parents for weeks. I thought to myself, “I can’t imagine having to live like that. Those poor people.”
Over the past several years, I had begun to realize the extreme amount of changes we would soon face, between climate change, globalization, and technological advances. I hadn’t foreseen the immediate infection that would march forth to affect us all. That the pandemic, much like forest fires and massive immigration and relocation due to war and flooding, heralds the beginning of countless hurdles that will upend and challenge our global society.
Most of us living in industrialized or newly industrialized countries enjoy stable lives with some creature comforts. We don’t often look forward to change, especially when it’s not a change that we can plan or control. When I visited one psychologist’s office decades ago, I received a questionnaire about how much change I had recently undergone. I checked off both positive and negative changes on the document, such as the fact that I had relocated to a new university, had a recent break up, had Christmas approaching (honestly, this makes the list), and gone on vacation.
Similar questionnaires in offices around the world use the Holmes-Rahe Stress Scale, a commonly used tool that predicts susceptibility to illness by rating each life change based on its overall impact. The higher the changes you’ve experienced over a year (even positive ones), the more likely that combination of changes might lead to stress, which can put your health at risk. Even many of our practitioners still see change as a detriment to our health.
In many cultures, we haven’t learned to look forward to stress. Even positive life transitions can activate emotions some might label either anxiety or excitement, depending on the perspective chosen. For most of us, our desire for newness especially diminishes as we grow fond of the things, people, and structures in our lives. Think about it: even at an early age, we find ourselves writing notes that say, “don’t ever change.”
Despite our conditioning, our attitudes about the stresses of transformation actually matter most. More recent findings have shown that a mindset shift can shape the way our body reacts to stress. Instead of experiencing negative emotions and stress hormones, when people perceive stress as challenging and enhancing, (rather than threatening and debilitating), they feel positive emotions, more mental flexibility, and an increase in stress-lowering hormones. Looking back, I’m so glad I didn’t listen to that “don’t ever change” yearbook advice in eighth grade. I’d be in a sorry state, trapped in that young mind who understood considerably less than I do now.
Even when we shift our mindset and embrace personal growth, we struggle with the external changes that we cannot control. As we constantly strive to better ourselves and the world around us, we find ourselves bumping heads with a world that alternates between remaining fixed in stubbornness and transforming in its own way, in directions we cannot always predict and often don’t want at all. Feeling the pressures of our own shifts along with so many things evolving around us can exhaust us.
Change fatigue drives us to seek constancy or stability in environments we can recognize, people with whom we feel comfortable, and situations that won’t bring us any additional stress. We build up walls of excuses to resist anything new or unusual to keep us safe and comfortable with what we know. From behind those walls of excuses that we build to maintain the status quo, our pools of potential stagnate without the rivers of fresh perspective that flow from stepping outside our comfort zones and challenging our beliefs and ways of life.
We cannot survive this way as a culture. Ahead lie the shifting tides of increased globalization, climate change, increased risks of infection in the changing climate, mass immigration, exponential advances in technology and artificial intelligence, social changes like the recent reaches for racial and gender equality, and countless evolutions that we cannot even imagine, much less predict.
Some believe in preparing themselves with survivalist courses and extreme measures to hunker down and stay safe. Although safety matters, true security in our modern society needs more than just our fight or flight instincts. Instead of fighting or hiding, I propose that we prepare ourselves individually and collectively to not only withstand but create meaningful change for ourselves and the world. Imagine the possibilities that could arise if you took intentional, meaningful steps toward improving your life satisfaction and personal development on a regular basis. What might our societies and our planet look like in these coming years and decades, if we decide not only to survive but also to find ways to actually thrive?
If we want to find solutions, the time for change is now.
As a coach and author who believes that the world is full of infinite potential, I want to ignite the passion for change that exists in millions of people around the world. I want to help these change-makers launch their personal uprisings. But, before we can reshape our world, we need to embrace change and transformation as a way of life. As the future unfolds, a myopic focus on simply surviving will leave us too dangerously close to the destruction of much of the world’s people, species, and precious resources. Instead, we stand a far better chance of survival and satisfaction when we find ways to embrace the possibility of thriving throughout the challenges to come.
Our chances of thriving increase exponentially when we face the future head on, both in its small shifts and major evolutions. Start by beginning to re-mold the way you look at the less profound changes in your life and around you. Close your eyes and hold in your mind one slight adjustment you’ve had to make recently that feels somewhat shaky or unsure. Ask yourself, “What about this could make me stronger? What’s possible if I take on this challenge?”
Investigating and improving the way we look at our lifelong resistance to even the smallest events lights the spark we need to start the fires of possibility within our world. Evolving our planet from a collection of people who resist transitions to a global society of change-makers will take some serious work. One person deciding to see one change as a chance — that’s where we start.
Abigail Wright is a transformational coach, singer, and author. You can find her work at abigailwright.com. Learn more about her coaching practice, book a sample session, and see what’s possible at timeforchange.coach.
References
Zuckerman, Wendy. “Coronavirus: Fears and Facts: Science Vs.” Gimlet, 17 Feb. 2021, gimletmedia.com/shows/science-vs/dvherdb/coronavirus-fears-and-facts.
Holmes TH, Rahe RH (1967). “The Social Readjustment Rating Scale”. J Psychosom Res. 11 (2): 213–8. doi:10.1016/0022–3999(67)90010–4. PMID 6059863
Crum, Alia J., et al. “The Role of Stress Mindset in Shaping Cognitive, Emotional, and Physiological Responses to Challenging and Threatening Stress.” Anxiety, Stress & Coping, vol. 30, no. 4, July 2017, pp. 379–395. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/10615806.2016.1275585.
