Let's face it. Just about the only people who like a change are wet babies! For the rest of us, a change is rarely welcomed. Change of any kind, personal or professional, is one of the most common sources of stress.

Change evokes a series of emotional responses that, left unmanaged, can eventually take a toll on health, happiness and performance.*

(Please see Moodscope blogspot for chart: http://moodscope.blogspot.com/2014/10/at-what-point-do-you-embrace-only-thing.html)

The question is not will you adjust to change, you eventually have no option. The real issue is how long will it take to shift and embrace it? Your relationships and your performance and success may depend on your ability to quickly move through the change cycle.

A strategy for coping with change.

Acknowledge where you are on the change curve. Observing your normal reaction to change adds objectivity and enables you to neutralise the damaging effects change can otherwise have.

Identify your core values. Remembering what matters most during stressful times is a help to shift your internal experience. It will reduce stress in the moment and creates the opportunity for a shift in how you are viewing things at that time.

If you manage a team, are part of a team or family, knowing where each person falls on the change curve lets you provide what is needed to help them move to the next stage: Information on the down slope; support during the trough; recognition on the up slope.

Take time each day to appreciate everyone's talents and contributions, including your own. Doing so is energising and helps minimise emotional drains and dramas.

Revisit organisational values. Starting staff or team meetings with a discussion of the group's shared mission or vision will help create an emotional shift that then positively impacts the meeting and facilitates adjustment to changes. The same will work over the dinner table or on a walk.

And if you do not have family values maybe you should create them. The fun of identifying your own and sharing them with someone else will take you deeper in a relationship and yet most don't even know what their own are, never mind their partners! Values are the core of every decision we make and when aligned what comes from this is an emerging joy...

"Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasure for long-term values"

Joshua L Liebman

Les

A Moodscope member.

*Model is loosely based on Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's work on grief and loss.