Embracing Change: Blog 140

Good morning! 
And another beautiful dawn...... ah the benefits of being a lark rarely fail to please me!

So - there's been a huge amount of change around over the past few months for me personally and for Arc - and now as I approach my final few weeks with my beloved company I stop for a moment to reflect on the past 29 years - and do so with nostalgia and love, and not a little amazement that they are passed and I am still here! (just!).

I want to give thanks again to my wonderful team and to wish them all the very best as they go forward into the future. I am now focused on completing things - tying up loose ends and making sure my handover is smooth and comprehensive. That's all on the practical level - on the personal level I am saying goodbye to people I have worked with for a lifetime,and that's never easy. Of course - its not really goodbye as I am only moving next door, and we will be close associates going forward, but its goodbye to the way things have been. Of course its also hello for all of us to new possibilities and opportunities not yet dreamed of and that is exciting. I know that Arc will flourish with the dedication and commitment of the team and will embrace new creative energies entering the space.I wish them all the best and my heart goes with them. Arc will always be very special to me - like a child grown. 


In thinking about coping with change - a few things strike me - so I have jotted them down below just in case any of my readers are going through something similar at the moment. Of course the secret truth is that we are always going through change - its life, its dynamic - anything other is an illusion much as fear sometimes makes us want to keep things just the way they are. Tom Peters, the well known management guru ( hate that term!) gave us a radical alternative to 'If it ain't broke don't mend it' - his was 'If it ain't broke - break it'. Whilst wanton destruction is not my metier - I have always liked this idea - it forces us to look more deeply at what we do and how and to question whether there might be another way. In my experience there usually is. Its evolution.

So a few thoughts wrought from my own experience.

As I said change is an unavoidable fact and I have been through many changes recently. Far from ruining my life, the seismic shifts gave me the chance to do new things I had always hoped to do - focus on the novel I have been attempting to write for the past five years, set up Jasmine Street, spend time in my beloved Poland, renew friendships, learn to take better photos, buy a Bromoton bike, spend quality time with old friends, make new friends and more. In the process, I discovered a lot about how to survive when head-rattling transformations are thrust upon you. Here are some of the tricks I picked up along the way. 

1. Don't just do something; sit there. If you’re facing a massive change in your life, your first impulse might be to go into a whirring spin of activity, which is exactly what I did. I later discovered there’s a lot of value to sitting quietly instead. In the realm of language learning, there’s a stage called the silent period: Adults may try to avoid going through it, but if you take a kid and drop her down in Paris for a period of timel, she’ll naturally clam up for a few months. When she opens her mouth, her French will have flowered. Making sense of a major change is a lot like that. You need to allow yourself a fallow period before you can blossom. 

2. Mother yourself a little. When familiar routines suddenly dissolve, it can seem as if all your supports are gone. For a while after I made my decision to leave Arc I had the sense that I was in free fall. It’s crucial, while absorbing the shock of the new, to make yourself feel well taken care of. Prepare nutritious meals for the week ahead, I had a few massages too. You need to take some time for yourself.

3. Ignore your inner reptile. There’s a part of the human mind that is often referred to as the “lizard brain,” because it existed in even the earliest land animals. The lizard brain is concerned with survival; it likes the tried and true, so it’s likely to pop up right now, flooding you with adrenaline warnings of “Danger!” as you veer off course. This was a useful function to have when deviating from the familiar path to the watering hole may have led to an encounter with a saber-toothed tiger. But in the modern world it’s like a misfiring car alarm: pointless and annoying. 

4. Silence your inner 'know-it-all', too. When asked what makes people good at languages the eminent linguist Alton Becker he said 'It helps not to be too clever, clever people don’t like having their minds changed, and to learn a language, you have to change your mind.” If you’re so smart that you can’t rethink your positions, your IQ score won’t do you much good when your life is turned upside down. Becker’s advice applies across the board. 

5. Seek out new perspectives. Zen practitioners cultivate the “don’t know” mind; they work to assume they don’t know anything and in that way see the world fresh. This is a great way to approach change―as an opportunity to start anew, to consider all possibilities. Ask naive, wide-eyed questions of anyone who is doing anything you might be interested in trying. Listen seriously to arguments you might once have dismissed. 

6. Try something new and slightly scary. Why? Because now is the time to explore what it is that you really like. Catch yourself off-guard and see what happens. 

7. Be skeptical of common wisdom. It’s dangerous to live in the aggregate, especially when you’re trying to figure out your next move. One year, everyone knows you need an MBA to succeed at anything. The next, they’re saying that there are no jobs out there anyway, so don’t even try.

8. Learn to live with uncertainty.That anxious feeling that often comes up when you are doing something out of your usual comfort zone does not signal that you’re doing something wrong, only that you’re trying something new. 

9. Say "really?" a lot. When you start to turn this sudden shift in your life to your advantage, you might shake up a lot of people, especially the ones who aren’t happy with how they’re living. To them, your efforts to move forward may feel like a glaring searchlight that needs to be switched off and fast. To their descriptions of the terrible fates that will surely befall you if you dive headlong into a new life, respond with “Really?” Alternatively, “Oh, yeah?” works, too. 

10. Shed your old skin. Discard physical clutter, tired ideas, old routines. Seeing things through another’s eyes can help. Clear the loft, chuck the rubbish, see how its possible to live with not much stuff around you! I focused on a few beautiful things that give me pleasure.

So these are my thoughts for today - may or may not chime I guess - depending where you are.

Have a lovely day and enjoy the sunshine!