To this day, I still can’t wrap my mind around someone being in the same job, even at the same company, for 10 years, never mind a whole career. I’ve purchased 3 homes in 3 different states in the last decade. After I was laid off last year, I decided not to go back into the corporate machine at all. I’m divorced. All this to say, I know about change. Sometimes I think I exist for the purpose of change. And it’s still hard.
This year, as I set out to work for myself, I got a lot of feedback about bravery and strength as a single mom making the change to entrepreneur during a global pandemic. But really, I didn’t have a choice. I had no idea when my kids were going back to school, I still don’t. No reasonable organization was going to give a high stakes position like Communications VP to someone whose only guaranteed availability was between 9 and 10 PM. I was ejected from the machine, doors closed and barred. The only option was to change.
This fact, as you can imagine, also doesn’t make it any easier. Never mind that at the time I was just healing from my divorce, and only starting to recover from finally being out of an extremely toxic work environment.
To be clear, change isn’t always this dramatic, but the point remains…
Change is very rarely simple and straightforward.
Even when you want to make positive change - it’s hard because it’s more complicated than we, as humans who love to compartmentalize, would like. Changing your diet means changing how you socialize. Changing your job means changing everything from your commute to your health insurance. It’s why so many coach challenges and trendy health programs, like Whole30 and Dry January, are short - because you’re not really changing anything. You’re just trying something else out for a minute, then back to regular life where nothing has changed at all.
We might hold onto a new habit or two from the experience, at least briefly, and we have the rush of challenging ourselves and hitting a goal - those are changes, esoteric as they may be. If we’re trying enough new things at any given point in time, we can use that vibe to convince ourselves we’re constantly changing. Which is to say…
Doing lots of different things isn’t the same as changing.
In fact, really being able to make major changes often requires stripping back the layers of busy stuff to get down to the basics - like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs level basics. And that can be super hard.
In our culture of soundbites and memes and gurus selling self-actualization for a reduced-for-coming-to-my-workshop price, we’ve created an entire market of group fixes for some deep shit. No matter what you’d like to change, you can definitely pay someone else to tell you how they did it. While learning from other people’s experiences, and valuing the fact that they share them, is critical to helping all of us....
Only you can make changing work for you.
This is true if you’re thinking about getting bangs or stepping down as CEO of a large organization. Whether you’re forced into a change (like getting laid off right before the world shuts down), or making the decision for yourself, you’ll likely go through most of the stages in what’s known as the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change. Those are: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination. Basically, you think about it but aren’t ready, you think about it and are a little ready, you get ready, you do it, you keep doing it, sometimes you stop.
This model, developed by James Prochaska in the 1970s, is focused on making positive health changes, so think about a health change for this next bit, like quitting smoking. According to the model, the first 3 stages might take a year to a year and a half. That’s 18 months of just thinking about changing before you even start counting your days as a nonsmoker. (Or, your life as a person with bangs, if that’s the change you were contemplating when you first started reading.)
Since this theory was first founded, researchers have added an additional TWENTY-ONE processes of change that take place within those 6 stages. You have to get the big picture, adjust your mindset, set goals, try some stuff, reward yourself - all over years in the act of making that change. Which is just a science-y way of describing the old cliche…
Change is a lot of work.
And when you’re jumping all around - changing your diet, adding a morning ritual, doing a marketing plan, then doing a research survey, just being busy at all the other things, it can be kind of impossible at worst, chaotic at best. You might be diving into strategies that don’t match with the stage of change you’re actually in because you’re in a hurry to get there. You might be trying to change the wrong thing.
Or, in my case, I found myself changing a lot of stuff at once, in major ways, while trying to stay above water as the only caretaker and breadwinner in two little guys’ lives, and feeling a lot of pressure. So, I did all of the above and then some. Some days it still feels kinds of impossible, though mostly not. And, while it’s not smooth sailing just yet, it is a lot less chaotic.
But the changes - as usual, as I always learn when I’m out there switching things up on purpose, too - are worth it. I didn’t just change my career, I changed my life’s priorities and goals. I changed my perspective on parenting, learning, connection and wellness. I am constantly humbled and learning to be okay with it. And I take everything I’ve experienced into how I interact with my family, chosen family, clients, and colleagues. As a consultant and executive coach, I deal in change and transition every day. Based on my experiences, I know…
Change isn’t something you can turn into a one-size fits all package.
But it can be done if you really take it seriously. If you take yourself seriously. It helps to be clear on your own values and priorities. One of the exercises I often give my coaching clients is to visualize a moment in the future and describe it in the most beautiful way possible. From that exercise, you can see what you value the most, and what you need to prioritize to make it real. The only thing left to do after that, is start changing. Easy right?
Your writing prompt is:
Visualize a moment in the future - 2 years, 5 years, 6 months - and describe it in the most beautiful way possible (in the bounds of reality - no resurrections, please). What does it look like, and feel like and smell and taste and sound like? Who’s there and what’s everyone doing in that one moment in time? Describe it as though you’re looking back on a beautiful memory.