#101. Change

While change is the only constant in life, we have a fairly hard time navigating through it. This begs the question, why? Today, we try to decipher the ever evolving phenomenon of change, and how we can best approach this convoluted facet of life.

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”

― Vincent Van Gogh

A Note of Gratitude:

I want to start (or begin) this article with a heart completely filled with gratitude. If you haven’t noticed yet, this is my 101st article on Facets of Life. For some, the number of articles would be a lagging indicator for the growth of a blog. It is not a flashy engagement related metric, like number of views, likes or comments.

However, I took a lot of pride in getting to this milestone.

The main reason for this pride is that becoming a writer has been a dream of mine as long as I can remember. Thanks to the internet, I get to live this dream every week. The supporting reason is that thanks to all the 2000+ people who have visited my website, I have committed to writing once every week, allowing me to continue to live my dream.

So for anyone who took time out of their routines to read just one of my articles, I want to say thank you. I hope that I have been able to make you think and give you a different perspective.

Back to regularly scheduled programming:

Today I want to talk about an omni present phenomenon. Change. Ask anyone, and you will hear about change being hard. Be it moving to a new city, starting a new job, getting married or starting a workout routine, there is always complexity involved with any kind of change. The uncertainty, the commitment required to navigate the process of change is a daunting endeavour, and that is the case with anyone, bar none.

Interestingly, change is something no of us are immune to. Everybody, and I mean everybody has to experience some sort of change at every point in their lives.

On one of my sitting and thinking breaks at work, I had this question.

“If everyone has to experience constant change, why is change considered hard? Why aren’t we great at it?”

So, I set out on a quest to identify the answer to this question.

To know the most, I tried to find the most prone to change avenue in my vicinity. And if you are looking for an apt representation of the unruliness of life’s waters, one needs to look no further than the current technological space. Any technology employee could easily testify the pace at which the technological ecosystem around us is changing. A new technology is born every business day, and at least one meets its end at the same pace.

However, there is a reason we call corporate entities organisations, because they are indeed the most organised amongst all. Most organisations have (or hire) people who are “change management” experts. For anyone wondering, change management is what it seems like, it is the process of managing change within an organisation. The change might be functional, process related, a merger, an acquisition or a technological change.

There are couple of models for change management that are prevalently used.

1. Big bang Approach: The change is rolled out to the entire organisation at once.
2. Phased Approach: The change is rolled out to small subsets of the organisation, with a constant feedback loop kept open to fine tune the process of change.

This is great, but when do I use which? I was looking for change management guidance from a personal development lens, so I tried to attach what I already knew about change, specifically, the origins of change.

Consequently, I came across the two origins of change:

1. External: These changes originate from the outside.
2. Internal: A drive for change which stems from within.

From a logical standpoint, it becomes evident to us.

Any external change follows the big bang approach. The change just happens, and we are required to (or it would behoove us) adjust to the change. However, an internal change gives us the privilege to follow a phased approach, where we can start small, make strides and update our approach as needed.

Given this, I am trying to accept this idea as of late:

All of us should know how to navigate the unruly waters of life, and do so with as much grace as possible.

Logically, the more change is internally driven, the easier it is to manage. However, we should accept the fact that some things will continue to remain beyond our control.

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂