All Change is About Adjusting Expectations

Whenever my life has taken a turn for better or worse I have had to adjust my expectations.  As human beings I think we do that on a daily basis and if we maintain our previous expectations in the face of a changing environment we are always headed for conflict.  Ever day is a new opportunity to RESPOND to life rather than to react to it.  When circumstances shift and change we have choices to make.  We can become recalcitrant and refuse to acknowledge the need for us to change our way of looking at the world or we can embrace change with open arms.

Both are valid choices.  There are circumstances where accepting a new way of doing things is NOT OKAY. It may be in some way harmful to you or to your organization or family.  Its okay to become positional and to protect what you know to be a better way.  In those instances we move into fight mode and get ready to battle the forces of negative change.  We defend.  We protect.  We resist.  Or we move into freeze mode and ignore the changes, carrying on as if nothing has really changed.  Or we move into flight mode and run away to a different place where there is no change, where everything is as it should be.

If a change threatens us we are likely to fight, freeze or flee.  It is a natural reaction and is healthy where change is harmful. Where we are experiencing a positive change in our circumstances  we may still resist because there is someting about changing what we do or the way we do it that insinuates that how we used to do it was wrong.  No one wants to be wrong.  That’s why we question any change that we are asked to make or endure.

Over the years I have experienced major changes in circumstances more than once.  New jobs in different places with different people have been part of my history.  I welcome change when it is positive and means an improvement in some aspect of my life … better opportunities or a chance to be closer to family for example.  When I understand the change and the reason for it I can begin to release any resistance, relax into the new situation and relate to the new expectations.

Change has become the norm for me but now I find myself  in a place where change is not as necessary or as easy as it once was.  No matter what change in circumstance you are experiencing it is the adjusting of expectations that takes time and energy.  There are new expectations coming for me to be settled and still instead of uncertain and moving all of the time.  So here I am, the queen of adjusting expectations, setting expectaions for myself around my life circumstances that are contrary and different from how I have lived my life so far.  Can I embrace this change or will I resist?

This should be interesting……