Accepting Change

Accepting Change

I like to visit a local coffee shop in my neighborhood each Sunday afternoon. It is a comfortable place for me to have a cup of coffee and a little treat in the early afternoon after church. This past week I went during halftime of a football game which I was watching. The team that I have rooted for since I was 8 years old recently had to make a decision. Their starting quarterback is a team icon, having led the team for the last 15 years. During that time he has led the team to 2 championships. However, in recent years the team has fallen on hard times. Some fans were calling for the quarterback to be replaced. Others remembering what he had done for the team, and knowing the caliber of players around him had slipped also, did not want to see him replaced. His successor was drafted by my team a few months back. And, while the successor has a lot to learn, it became obvious as the team was preparing for the season, that physically the successor was superior to the long time hero. Three games into the season, the team’s coach decided to make a change at the position.

The early results have been promising. The successor has reenergized the team’s performance. He has provided them more options in terms of what its offense is able to do. And, the hero who was replaced, has made the process work well in that he is offering to help mentor the successor with his knowledge of situations which may come up during a game.

Each individual responds differently to change. It is rare that the road to acceptance is taken quickly. Change is fostered on us from the outside. Our processing of what has happened, and our ultimate working through it is really the transition as to how we “accept the change.”

Recently I provided a workshop for a group of manufacturing workers at a plant in southern New Jersey. The plant, which has been in existence since 1937 at its current location, will be closing and moving out of state. The workers have known about the change for a while, when I went to meet with them. I was impressed with how well they have accepted the news, having come to terms with the fact it was a business decision and not a personal reflection on them. They were open to hearing from me the steps they would need to take to prepare for finding their next job opportunities. We discussed them getting to understand themselves, understanding what potential employers might be seeking, preparing their written and verbal communication and how they would want to reach out to others to help them to connect with people who could lead them to opportunities. At the end of the session, they were receptive and appreciative of the material and information that I had shared with them.

As I said earlier, while change itself is the event that has or is going to happen, how we transition through that change is the key. If you can, imagine 3 distinct areas. One is the one where you are currently positioned. Off in the distance is one where you will ultimately wind up. In between is an “area of uncertainty.” While that “area of uncertainty,” is not a comfortable place to be, it is where we learn what it is we may really want, what we can best help others with, and come to acceptance with the fact that landing in that area where we will wind up is not necessarily good or bad, just different. Some never make it to that area where they will wind up. They look to hold onto the place where they have always been, even when for the most part it is gone, and nothing like they remembered it to be. Others spend a long time in the “area of uncertainty,” and never move forward or backward. However, those that wind up in the new area find a couple of things.

The new area offers them new opportunities and challenges. It may actually be the springboard to even further areas of opportunity. Additionally, some of their skills and experiences from the past have actually gone with them and are of value in their new area. And, most of all, when faced with the challenge of change again, they are prepared to navigate it, since they know they have successfully done it once before.

Are you being asked to face changes in your life? How well are you accepting them? Are you looking to navigate them alone or with the help of others? Know your reactions are very normal. Your responses to those reactions, though, are all going to be up to you.