Reflections
- Think of a recent major change you experienced. What were you afraid of? What actually happened?
- Imagine creating a change in your life that you want. What are you afraid of? What is the worst that can happen? What is the best that can happen?
Reframing the Perspective
For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Pamela Mitchell in her book The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention: Essential Survival Skills for Any Economy[2] states that most “…fears break down to a number of anxious what-ifs.” Our job, as a coach, is to help our clients identify those “what-ifs,” name the underlying fear, and analyze it. Helping our clients shift from fear of the unknown to an acceptance of change is a powerful perspective shift and can create action where there is stagnation. However, the client needs to really know what the fear is, and look at the values contributing to the fear. This can be a very spiral process. When considering our fears, we will identify a fear, then discover an underlying belief that contributes to the fear, address it, and often uncover another fear.
The first step is to define the change. What change does your client want to make? The answer may not be as simple as it sounds. This is where we can really use powerful questioning and active listening to help our client understand the change they want to make, why they want to make it, and what the factors and underlying beliefs are. A desire to change companies may be camouflaging a desire for a career that will allow our client to spend more time with their family, or to start their own business.
Next, we need to define the fears and excitement around the change. What about this change does your client want? What fear is preventing action? It is important that at this step we help the client truly identify what the fear is and which of their core values are being threatened. We also want to help them identify the values that are being supported by this change, and help them maintain sight of those values and the sense of lightness that aligning their lives with their values will bring. Again, powerful questions and active listening will lead your client to understand the root of their fear and the benefits of the change.
At this point we can help our clients identify the “worst case scenarios” and the best possible outcomes of the change. This can help our client move past stagnation in two ways. They may see that the worst that can happen isn’t really that bad when compared to the best that can happen. If the fear is rooted in ambiguity[3], this step will clearly define the fear. Now an action plan can be created to help minimize the impact of the “worst case scenario”.
As mentioned above, this may be more of a spiral process than a linear process. We may need to help our clients work through and investigate several layers of fears, excitements, and best/worst case scenarios. It is very important that we uncover these layers and get to the deepest fears and values so that our client can move more easily into action.
Acceptance of change will grow out of this understanding of the fears and values underlying the desired change, and the best and worst case scenarios that have been identified. Our client can now face the prospective change from a place of acceptance, serenity, and understanding.
Reflections
- How has fear of change held you back? How has acceptance helped you move forward?
- How can you help your client identify their fears surrounding change?
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holmes_and_Rahe_stress_scale
[2] Mitchell, Pamela. The 10 Laws of Career Reinvention: Essential Survival Skills for Any Economy. New York, New York: Dutton, The Penguin Group, 2010
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguity_aversion