Five Steps to Manage the “Winds of Change”

The winds of change are in the air and this blog describes five steps to manage the “winds of change” in your life. As I write this blog, it’s fall and the trees are starting to shed their leaves to get ready to hibernate for the winter. Change is constant and it’s happening right in front of our eyes at an exponential pace. October is a month of transition from one season to the next. You smell the air  and it smells different. It’s crispier, feels cleaner, and the sky becomes bluer. Vivid colors of the trees create picturesque scenery for us to enjoy. But it can also bring anxiety about what’s to come. The uncertainty of change can be debilitating, confusing, and even paralyzing to some people.

So how do we cope with the winds of change? In this article, we share five steps to manage the winds of change in your life.

Step 1: Compartmentalize your life into two big “buckets.”

Let’s start, for simplicity, by making two big areas in your life: Work/Professional/Career and Home/Family/Personal. Then ask questions under each area that can help you define with clarity, what exactly are you experiencing right now? Unfortunately, often people experience multiple changes at the same time which complicates how you cope with the entire situation.

Step 2: Identify the Changes.

Next step is to list all the potential reasons as to why change is present in your life now. Make a list under each question that you posed in the first step. Then select or circle the answers (or reasons) to each question that best apply to your situation.

Below is an example of a chart with questions and reasons (stressors) based on the two big areas of life:

Step 3: Acknowledge that change is occurring.

There are many other questions that you can ask yourself to identify and clarify the type of change you are experiencing in your life. We only provide a short list of questions and possible triggers or reasons to help you get started. The next step is to acknowledge that change is happening in your life. Just this step will help you to understand your own behavior and help you know that “you are normal.” Change happens to everyone, but we can choose to cope with it in different ways to ensure a successful outcome.

Step 4: Accept the circumstances with grace.

As you can see, whether the change is negative or positive, it is nevertheless a change. Therefore, that change brings with it new stress that impacts each person differently. Your body reacts uniquely to the various stressors and your mind also copes with each circumstance different from others. Once you identify the type of change and acknowledge that it’s happening, the next step is to accept the situation. That doesn’t mean you do nothing and let life happen to you. It means that now you have clarity and can choose the correct course of action.

Make decisions and act.

Identifying exactly what type of change you are living through is crucial to making the appropriate decisions. Once you decide what to do based on your options, then you act accordingly. There are always options and there is help so understand that you are not alone. It is difficult for most people to ask for help. However, once you get over the fear of asking for help, that is an action in itself. This is the first step to continue the journey successfully. Additionally, remember that prayer and asking God to help you is also action!

Living life is difficult. And living life with the winds of change constantly blowing at us makes it even harder. However, don’t get discouraged. Change is normal and it’s okay to feel disoriented at first. It starts with your mindset and having a process to cope with change. Therefore, first, identify the type of change, acknowledge that you’re going through change, accept it, and act on it. I hope these five steps to manage the “winds of change” encouraged you to successfully go through it.