Reflections on VITALITY™: Adaptable in Changing Environments.
A CHANGE PLAN™ for Coping with Significant Personal and/or Organizational Change.
Control your responses - emotional, attitudinal, work habits. Change, by its very nature, entails some form of loss and uncertainty. How well an individual has dealt with loss and with uncertainty in the past will help forecast how well they can handle this change. One advantage that persons who are experienced with change have over those who are inexperienced are (1) their ability to control their emotions and their attitudes towards others at work and at home, and (2) their ability to continue working, even in the face of loss and uncertainty.
Harmonize your personal domains of self, relationships and participation. For more than a generation, psychological and medical research has demonstrated the importance of a balanced life in reducing disease and psychological distress. Three life domains should be kept in equilibrium:
Self - which includes the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects of who you are.
Relationships - which includes your intimacies, kith and kin networks and work and community affiliations.
Participation - which refers to your sense of purpose, achievement, and contribution to the larger social good.
When any one of these domains is less functional than the others, it routinely places additional pressure on the other domains. For example a change in employment status may have negative effects on physical health or interpersonal relationships. Marital problems can put pressure on your job performance or physical well-being. If you stay aware of imbalances in any of the three domains, you can direct your efforts to regain your equilibrium in all three life domains.
Anticipate social, emotional and physical reactions. All significant life changes are accompanied by a wide variety of reactions: some social, some emotional, some physical. In times of major change, whether personal, occupational or social, don't be surprised when you experience a wide variety of reactions, some of them quite strong or persistent. Physical reactions may be insomnia, loss of appetite, or nausea. Emotional reactions may include anxiety, irritability, difficulties in concentration, or frequent mood swings. Social reactions may include loss of friendships, loss of social supports, or a change in reference groups. Such experiences are typical reactions to significant life changes and the stress that accompanies them. Expecting and recognizing such reactions will often reduce their impact, especially if you balance your life domains, and practice good stress management techniques.
Negotiate with yourself and others to get your needs met. Times of change, uncertainty and loss are among those times when people should work hard to take good care of themselves. Being good to yourself is critical at these times, often because others may not know how to be good to you. To the greatest extent possible, make arrangements with others who are a part of your "relationships" domain to help you get your personal and interpersonal needs met, especially your needs for affiliation, self-esteem and anxiety control. Call upon your kith and kin networks to provide you with the vocational, personal and relationship resources you need to get by and get ahead. Be a good friend, and, when you are able, return the favor to another who is having a hard time.
Grow through successful adjustment to changes. Successful responses to change follows a simple mastery paradigm: the more changes to which we successfully accommodate, the easier it is for us to handle later changes. Unfortunately, the first attempts at handling adversity and change are often the hardest. But for us to derive the maximum benefit from change experiences, it is important to be open to them - to be willing to grow in the process. Resistance to change blocks our progress both now, and in the future.
Expect mistrust, low morale and mistakes. Research on individual and organizational responses to change and other adversity forecast three typical reactions: (1) trust in others suffers; (2) trust (and confidence) in oneself declines; and (3) all parties will make mistakes. The tendency toward mistakes, unfortunately, causes confidence in others and oneself to further deteriorate. The loss of familiar patterns of behavior, as well as the increase in uncertain outcomes causes typically confident and competent persons to become afraid, mistrustful and intermittently incompetent. Those who expect these temporary reactions will be best able to overcome them.
Practice stress management. Research over the past 30 years has demonstrated the importance of stress management on people's overall health and well-being. Periods of significant change are typically accompanied by increases in personal stress, that should be minimized. Good stress management practices include the following elements: maintaining a positive attitude (A); following a healthy diet (D); maintaining a sense of humor (H); getting an adequate amount of exercise (E); practicing relaxation (R); and maintaining realistic expectations (E). These six elements summarize a stress management program to which one should ADHERE.
Learn about your new situation. Because many of us resist change, and the discomfort it brings, we try to avoid having anything to do with our new circumstances. Avoidance, denial, distraction, wishful thinking, and many other devices are brought to bear to keep us from learning about and adjusting to an irreversible change. Yet, in the comfort of our familiar circumstances, we have been willing and sometimes eager to master new requirements and conditions. Now, more than ever, it is important for you to learn as much as possible about your new situation. Accurate information about what you can expect will help reduce your anxiety and improve your productivity, and perhaps even your job satisfaction, at a time when you will want to perform at your best. In the event that the change will require further adjustments on your part, for example changes in your job duties or marital status or residence, the verifiable, accurate and timely information will help you plan your next steps.
Acknowledge that all bad things are not the result of this change. There is a sign in my brother's house that reads: "These are the good old days." In times of adversity it is easy to blame all bad things, whether a marriage breakup. financial ruin, or a lack of rewarding relationships, on the major change event. This is rarely the case, and if you tend to focus on this event as the "cause of all my problems" you will be blocked in your attempts to develop a balanced and adaptive approach to your circumstances. These may not be good days, but the days gone by were probably not as good as they seem now. The best approach is to recognize the positive and negative effects of the change, and expand your personal, social and vocational skill repertoires to make tomorrow better than today.
Note your reactions - for yourself and for others. Throughout this change process those persons who are affected by it will experience a wide range of reactions and responses: some physical, others emotional; some social and interpersonal, others work and career related. Some of these reactions and responses will be challenging, others painful. Each change episode provides us with an opportunity to develop within us an expanded repertoire of responses that will assist us in the current period of uncertainty, and inoculate us for the next. These experiences and our reactions to them teach us important lessons in life. But many are forgotten because they are so painful. Unless we record and recall them they are unavailable to us and to those around us when similar challenges befall either. For this reason it is important for each of us to maintain a journal or other record of our challenging experiences as well as our reactions - successful or unsuccessful - to them.