Change

Welcome to 2021! Hope your Christmas and New Years was everything you imagined it to be. As we head into the new year, take some time to reflect on 2020. It was a fast, yet long year that held a lot of emotional weight. It was a trying time for the world as a whole, nevertheless, some people still thrived in their personal lives. *Love to see it!* As you’re reflecting, I recommend using a physical pen and paper and write down your 2020 highs and lows. Next to your highs, write down what led to those moments. What was your work ethic like at the time? Who were the people you surrounded yourself with? What emotions were you feeling during the time? How was your mental, physical, and spiritual state? These are important reflection questions as they are indicators for when you’re at your best. Use these same reflection questions as you reflect on your 2020 lows. Anytime there is a change or shift in your life, aka a change, it’s always important to note what led to the shift.

 I recommend a physical pen and paper because when we type on our phones, computers, or other electronic devices, we may receive notifications or updates that interrupt our train of thought or disrupt our attention. In other words, there is a greater possibility of getting distracted during that reflection process. When you do use a physical pen and paper (journal, notebook, loose paper, etc.), I recommend putting your phone face down and away from you. Give yourself the same amount of attention and dedication you give to checking your social media or checking in with others. After doing your 2020 reflections, if you haven’t already, write your 2021 new years resolutions. What are your plans for the year? They don’t have to be concrete, they can be aspirations, ideas, or a vague concept if you have a hard time narrowing down on your wants. 

This is the perfect time to sit with yourself, get introspective, and find out what motivates you, what makes you happy, what you wouldn’t mind doing short/long term. Don’t rush this process, sit with yourself and your thoughts for as long as your mind, body, and soul push you to do so. As I said before, give yourself the same amount of attention and dedication you give to checking your social media and checking in with others. I’m claiming for myself and for you all that 2021 will bring continuous clarity, a peace of mind, and stability in all aspects-mentally, physically, spiritually, and financially. Now to segway into today’s topic Change. 

Change 

(noun). – The act or instance of making or becoming different 

Have you heard the saying that the only constant in life is change? If you haven’t, now you have! It’s true! Everyday, the day changes, every 60 seconds the time changes, your hairstyle may change, your taste in food, your style, habits, friend groups, life routines, your job, your partner, so on and so forth. The only thing besides death that we are guaranteed in life is change, it’s inevitable. 

Some changes are subjectively more grand than others. As in moving to a new state or starting a new job is more grand than liking avocados when you use to despise the taste. Some changes clearly have a larger impact on your life than others. How do we embrace, accept, and welcome these larger changes? How do we adjust to a new norm?

Change can be scary because you don’t know what to expect. For instance, if you move, you don’t know if you’ll have nice neighbors, meet new friends, or in other words you don’t know if the change is a good or bad change until you’re somewhat already into the change… or so I used to think. Although change is inevitable, we decide to an extent the impact of said change. How? With our mindset. 

I typically accept all change, bad or good. Accepting it doesn’t mean I agree with it. Accepting change means I now understand that life will life whether I want it to or not. The unknown (usually the cause of fear) is not as scary as we think. That fear, hesitation, and/or anxiety is rooted in our ego. We crave to know and understand everything, all the whys and hows. When the whys and hows don’t align with our subjective standards we internally created, we reject it in a form of anxiety, fear, or another internal emotion that doesn’t make us feel too great. For instance, I’m terrified of spiders (well all creatures that move really lol) but I’m only scared of them because I don’t understand their physical features. I get that some of these creatures are helpful and an important piece to nature as a whole, but I personally feel they could look less scary. They just don’t fit my subjective standard of how I want things to look. 

Accepting change becomes easier the second you check your ego. Check your ego, respectfully. Ask yourself why it’s so important to know what tomorrow yields, what a few days, months, or years from now yields. Not metaphorically speaking, literally ask yourself (look in the mirror or make it a journal prompt) why is it so important to know or understand a day that has yet to come. What do you gain? If I were to tell you the next change in your life will be the best change to ever happen to you, what would do? If I were to tell you the next change in your life will be the worst thing that will happen to you, what would you do? The first may or may not increase your productivity to make sure my words become your reality and the latter may or may not decrease your productivity because although I do not actually know, a part of you will internalize my prediction and believe that your fate is sealed. 

The latter is typically what happens when we don’t accept change or start to worry and or fear change. We start coming up with countless outcomes and scenarios of what could possibly happen. It only takes one negative thought to create a domino effect of bad thoughts. It only takes the one. Going back to that moving scenario, here’s an example of how one thought can lead to a lot more. “What if I don’t like my neighbors, what if they don’t like me, it’s going to be hard living in a place if I don’t get along with my neighbors, we’re going to get into arguments, what if I don’t make friends, wow I’m going to be out there alone, should I really move?” 

Now using the same example but accepting the change… “I’m moving to a new state, wow what an exciting opportunity.” That’s that. Life will life whether you want it to or not. You have no idea what change will bring, but when you accept it and accept the fact that it could potentially be exciting and positively impactful to your overall being, you invite opportunities, growth, and a chance for good shifts to reside. 

This takes mental discipline and practice. Every time you start to think about a change in your life that has yet to come and fear, anxiety, or another internal emotion that doesn’t make you feel good starts to arise, immediately change the subject. Start thinking about how your day is currently going, your next meal, see if you did everything on your daily todo list, just immediately replace future false worries with your current reality. I’m calling them false worries not to insult, because your emotions are always valid. I’m calling them false worries because you are internally creating scenarios that have yet to happen, you have no idea what outcome that change will yield, therefore your worries are…not real, fake…false. 

Anticipating a change? Don’t. Worrying about a change? Don’t. Trying to predict what a change will bring? Don’t. Live life in the moment. Life will life. Accept changes as they come and handle problems (when/if) they arise, don’t create a false playground of problems to play with or that is what you’ll end up with. Accept change. Why? Because that’s #WhatChiSaid! See you next time!

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