Change is Hard

Mitchell Emmerton
Dec 10, 2021
2 min read

Updated: Feb 4, 2022

“Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don't belong.”- Mandy Hale

Change is hard and that's ok, changing our actions and beliefs is a difficult thing, it is natural to feel more drained or lost when trying to forge a new path. Change will happen to you at some point in your life, forced on you or chosen by you, try not to get angry or emotional at forced change this change is usually out of our circle of control and influence, you control how you react to it, you decide your actions and response, no one else. Knowing why we resist or don’t like change can help us react appropriately, refocus and persevere through the change.

Why Change can be hard

Change is hard and knowing the reasons why can help develop resilience and ingrain positive change into your life, the following are some reasons change can be hard;

1. The comfortable

Not knowing where you will be or if the change will work is a scary thing for most of us, we think we know we are ok now why do we need to change? Is the “status quo” really ok?

2. The benefit

By not knowing if the change will benefit us we start thinking, “why start if I don’t know the benefit or result?”, the fear of the unknown is a hard thing to overcome.

3. The Scale

We get overwhelmed with the what ifs, if I change X then ABC needs to be changed too. Being overwhelmed can shut down critical thinking and hijack us to be in an emotional state.

4. The Direction

We like to have a clear path and direction to follow, sometimes this is just not possible, it can feel like walking on a path with thick fog around us not knowing which direction to go, it can feel we don’t have control.

What can we do about it?

Some ideas that can help with change;

Focus on the journey – just going through the change journey can help build resilience to accept change in your life.
You can always go back – if you are the one initiating the change and it didn’t work out, that’s ok, just go back to how it was before. Two things to not think of this as failure, firstly you know now that it doesn’t work so you don’t have regret of the what if’s and secondly you have been through the change process further building resilience
Take action – Acceptance of and owning the change, if this thing is happening to you or it’s your choice you want it to happen then make it yours and take direct action, accept that change is happening, make a plan and start executing.
Make a plan – Write something down, discuss it with a mentor, work through the steps. Break it down into more manageable chunks, focus on the process to get the result you want; How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.