Stop Hiding from Change
If recent years have taught us anything, it's that change is inevitable and no one is immune to its effects. Just one change across the world can create a ripple effect that we all feel — and that's on top of the day-to-day changes happening in our own homes and businesses.
To have the life and business you say you want to have, you’ve got to be in action… not reaction… to the change around you! Meaning, you can’t live life hiding under your covers. You have to be an emissary of change.
How to Be an Emissary of Change
The definition of an emissary is a person sent on a special mission. As an emissary of change, you are on a mission to lead by example and confront change head-on, with positivity, purpose, intention, and flexibility:
Stay present to the fact that you are the only person who has a say in how your life turns out. You have a choice in life. You can either choose to complain about what life throws at you or create a life you love with what the world hands you. What do you choose? The power of choice is yours!
The choice to be a master of change — or a victim of it — is yours! Choose to be in action instead of reaction. Make a commitment to be outrageous and unstoppable, and remember: the only thing in the world that you can control is who YOU choose to be in the face of change.
Be aware that those around you aren’t necessarily quick to change, either. So when you are moving forward and others are stopped cold, you must have patience and understanding and lead by example. Leadership is needed most when it is missing. So, step up and show others how to get into action and conquer their own fears and worries, instead of being stopped by them.
Don’t underestimate the emotional component of change for either yourself or others; be present to the feelings that change brings out in you and those around you. Encourage others to open up and communicate what they are feeling, and you need to do the same. Deal with your feelings; burying them will only serve to stop you!
Give up, “I know." Change is challenging to deal with because it usually means doing things in a way we haven’t done before. In other words, we don’t know what is ahead and, to move forward successfully, we have to give up “knowing”. We have to get committed to what we want, look for what we don’t know, and move ahead accordingly.
Have a written plan! Know what you want and where you want to be and when, and when change comes knocking on your door, don’t chuck your plan out the window. Instead adjust your plan (in writing) where necessary and keep marching forward.
Communicate with those around you. When you are inside of change in your own life, it is not only difficult for you, but for everyone around you. So don’t isolate yourself. Instead, communicate what is going on with those around you — allow them to help you where they can. If what you want to accomplish could be done by yourself, you would have already accomplished it. Plus when you ask people for their help, you get people involved and in action, too.
Finally, instead of fearing change, view change as an opportunity! Change can be challenging, but as they say: “When one door closes, another one opens.” There is always opportunity for learning and growing inside of every situation we are faced with, but we often have to look for those opportunities and be open to receiving them. Even the slightest changes can open up a huge space for something new to occur… something better!
Think about change this way: You are looking through a kaleidoscope. You first see a set pattern, but with the tiniest twist to the right or left, the entire picture changes before you, resulting in a new, surprising design.
Change is the only constant you can truly rely on and you have to be able to manage it in order to make opportunity of it! As John F. Kennedy once said:
"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
Each moment in your life, every move you make, creates change — and change is something we should all look forward to. After all, it is change that shows us what we don’t know, and it is at that point where learning truly begins!