Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. Frank Herbert
A few days ago, I learned of an important challenge facing one of my clients. The issue involved making a significant decision surrounding employment. She was faced with complex issues and factors that weighed heavily on her ability to select a course of action. There were new opportunities, but risks and uncertainty “waiting in the wings” as well. The possibilities that could be dimly seen over the horizon stood in contrast with the comforts of the known work environment. There was looking ahead while fearing leaving much behind. As my readers might expect, my client was torn between those two worlds of opportunity and security.
While discussing the choices she needed to make, a concept about change that I had learned before came back to me. It is a truism that has universal applicability to virtually every change situation.
Every change involves fear and loss.
Let’s apply these concepts to my client and her employment dilemma. While she could see that new job opportunities could likely bring higher income, more experience and resume’ diversification, and even broader options in terms of lifestyle and residency, she also feared giving up what she had in all of those areas. What if the promised enhanced income didn’t materialize? What if the new boss didn’t like her? What if, in a year, she was out looking for another job, or a better situation? Change always generates issues that can be fearsome or anxiety generating.
The loss comes in through our rear view mirror. The old job had its flaws, but many of her co-workers were genuine friends. She feared that her colleagues’ or assistants’ jobs could be in jeopardy if she were no longer there to protect or support them. And she was pretty comfortable in her old office, or classroom, or workstation. Very few jobs are so miserable that there isn’t something about it that one would miss. It is a loss in some significant way.
And so it goes in any application of the principle stated above in italics. There is excitement about moving into a new home, but pain in the loss inherent in leaving old and trusted neighbors. And it is a little scary as we wonder about the new family next door. Every new cell phone brings wondrous new features along with the dread of learning to operate it. And I knew how to use the old one. Loss.
So what is a body to do? We know the answer. Move forward with courage and prudence. In a previous newsletter, we discussed and defined courage; it is action in the face of fear. Andre Gide tells us, “One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”
Homework: What gains have you forfeited out of fear and the unwillingness to move away from the familiar? Can those lost opportunities be retrieved? If not, can you learn from past-paralyzed decisions and not repeat them? Let’s not allow understandable apprehension and inevitable loss keep us from reasoned progress and gain.
We all have big changes in our lives that are more or less a second chance. Harrison Ford