Identifying the Change

I believe one of the most important steps to accepting and dealing with change is to identify it and start moving forward as quickly as possible. Identifying it means recognizing it as a self-imposed change or change that is inflicted upon us. The reason we want to start at this point is because it will give us the opportunity to start creating a process for dealing with it in the most practical and positive fashion.

Self-imposed changes are ones we decide are important for our future and ones, which we can usually be more relaxed in our approach to dealing with them. For instance, if we decide we want to change jobs for one reason or another, we can take the steps in a logical, calmer manner. One week we can update our resume. The next week we can decide on whether we want to go through an employment agency, newspaper ads, computer websites, or even quit our present job and look fulltime or do temporary work until we find what we want. We need to weigh all those options and decide which is most judicious and feasible for our life style.

One example of change inflicted from the outside would be that you are told on Friday afternoon your job has been eliminated and you should clean out your desk and leave the building. You may need to go through all the above steps in the upcoming weekend and start your search on Monday morning. The stress that is created in this scenario is much more debilitating than that of the self-imposed change.

In both types of change we can do some of the exercises Aleta Koman, M. Ed. discusses in her book "How to Mend a Broken Heart – Letting Go and Moving On." In the chapter entitled "How to Stabilize Your Life", she discusses making columns listing items we "can" and "can not" control in our life. She points out that most of the time we can only control our self. I would like to add another column to Koman’s listing "What goal(s) I hope to attain through this change?"

Koman also suggests an exercise of looking in a mirror to help us gain a perspective on our emotional state by searching our physical appearance. She suggests that we write down the answers to several questions about our appearance and accept where we are. She emphasizes the fact that we are not ourselves after major changes such as loss of job, ending a long term relationship, the dissolution of a marriage. Our physical, emotional and spiritual self will become more apparent to us through this exercise.

My own experience has taught me that making a list of goals and marking them off as I accomplish them helps me to regain my self-esteem. It also gives me the confidence to set higher goals for myself. In the middle of the turmoil – the process of moving away from my home in order to separate from a failing marriage – I made both short term (2 weeks to 1 month) goals and longer term (1 – 3 months) goals. In order to explain that goals do not need to be complicated or difficult, I have listed some of the ones I set after making my decision:

List your goals to keep track of accomplishments

* I have found some women think their financial settlement needs to be handled solely by their attorney. I have a financial advisor, which I trust and who was familiar with both mine and my former spouse’s financial situation and our earning abilities. I scheduled conference calls between my attorney, my financial advisor and myself so the three of us knew what each one was thinking regarding the financial settlement.

I felt that if I could get through a week and check off one or two goals I would know that I was moving forward as opposed to backwards or just standing still. I found that when I was in a temporary apartment and still in the middle of my process of putting my life back together, I continued making goals. I had confidence that eventually I would be able to look back and congratulate myself on how well I had done.

This is important because whether it is a self-imposed change or one inflicted from the outside, we can still make it into a positive change in our life. Actually these goals should be set before we start the process of the self-imposed change(s). We can decide on the goals by asking ourself some of the following questions:

Question #1:  Do I want to attain a job which pays better?

Question #2:  How would I use the extra money to enrich my life?

Question #3:  Do I want to attain one closer to home in order to have more time with my family, to exercise in the evening or pursue my favorite hobby?

Question #4:  Do I want to continue the long commute and make creative use of the time during the drive to and from work?

If the change is inflicted upon us from an outside source, it may be more difficult to attain our goals because we need to secure a job sooner since we don’t presently have one. However, we can still set some goals for our situation. If it is economically feasible, we may want to do temporary work for a few months to explore a possible career change or various companies in our geographical area, or just to take pressure off ourself to get back into the daily grind of a new position. Temping gives us the opportunity to move away from the pain of the loss of a job and actually grieve that loss before plunging into a new situation.

I continued to set goals such as purchasing and decorating my own home as soon as possible; working on my writing and making it a higher priority in my life; gearing my travels and vacations toward research for my writing; deciding to live in Europe for a year or so when I retire; and to purchase a condo in Florida after my time in Europe.

I want to emphasize the importance of goals and some of those reasons are listed below:

Reason #1:  Goals give us positives to concentrate on instead of only negatives

Reason #2:  Goals help us to think about the future instead of the past

Reason #3:  Goals help us to focus on who we are because the goals should be geared toward our gifts and abilities

Reason #4:  When goals are accomplished we can see positive growth and an increase in our self-esteem

Nothing Stays the Same -3 (Continue)