3 Ways to Embrace Change

“Groundhog Day,” an American movie classic from 1993, is a story of television weatherman Phil Connors (played by Bill Murray) who gets caught in a time loop while covering the Punxsutawney Phil groundhog event. In the movie, Connors awakes to discover he is reliving the same day again and again. He only exits the loop when he changes his ways. This begs the question: Can you embrace change or do you like staying in the loop? Here’s another important question: How would your story end if you don’t change?

Change doesn’t only feel uncomfortable. Neurological research has shown that the brain perceives change as a threat. Your brain tells you to resist and refuse to change at all costs. Your brain is essentially trying to convince you that your situation, mental state, money issues, relationship struggles are all normal and “just part of life.” What happens when you resist change like Phil Connors did initially? You stay in the same pattern of being stuck, overwhelmed, losing money, fracturing relationships, and more. Which leads to another question: What are you getting out of not changing?

There are three ways to alter how your brain perceives change so it’s easier for you to embrace it and they all relate to a big deception.

Combat Your Brains Deception

• Know Your Choices: We all have choices we can make that change the directions of our experiences or alters the results of our current reality. Some of those choices might be difficult to execute, and even more difficult to swallow, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. Nothing will be as costly as what would happen if nothing changed.
• Be Humble: Pride is a killer of change management. Pride makes you believe you know it all, don’t need anyone, can do it on your own, and that you’re smart so you should be able to figure it out for yourself. Recognize this thought process as the ego putting up barriers to change. Yes, you’re smart in what you know, but your life results clearly highlight for you what you don’t.
• Stop Comparing and Celebrate: Constantly comparing what you have to what others can cause a quick spiral into stress, anxiety, depression, and self-defeating decision-making. We look to measure our lives, work, status, and more against the superficial and narrow view of what we know about others. Ultimately we end up judging ourselves more critically which is self-defeating. Instead of comparing, celebrate all of your uniqueness. Your journey is much more exciting than theirs.

Activity #1

Make a list of all the results in your life you are unhappy with (i.e. productivity, profits, weight, intimate moments, seeing kids’ ball games). Write down on a piece of paper all the choices you can imagine, no matter how dramatic the change or the price tag attached. Identify at least one person for each item who could help you get different results.

Activity #2

Write down the names of the people you envy, wish to emulate, or idealize. Contact them and set up a time and talk directly about their story, how they got there, their struggles, what they lost, gained, and gave up. Because anyone that has achieved anything of value to others has done exactly that, and it’s important you don’t only know their success but their journey to success, what they learned, and how they changed along the way.