It’s fear that stops us from experiencing growth, fear that keeps us from making changes that could well reinvigorate the humdrum and re-energise a body and soul bored with routine. Yet we resist change, we fight it… anything to stay with what we’ve grown accustomed to, with what we know, with what makes us feel comfortable.
We’re so fearful of change that we’ll often rather endure painful circumstances than move away from them. “Better the devil I know than the devil I don’t.”
How often haven’t you been stuck in a job you loathed, dreading Monday mornings? Or endured a tired relationship because the idea of dating again seems worse than coming home to the sloth on your sofa…
Bored with your gym routine but fearful of swapping it for a Salsa class in case you have two left feet? Still dishing up macaroni cheese every Tuesday because you just know you’ll never be Nigella?
What we quickly forget is that the comfort zone – or soporific rut – we’re now in, was also once unknown territory. That even if it’s been subconscious, we’ve had to transform in order to arrive at where we are today.
Sometimes, it takes a dramatic event to force change but more often than not, change happens incrementally. The ideal is neither; instead it’s to have the confidence to recognise the need for change and to embrace it without fear. After 12 years as a pharmacist, Adrienne Jacobs* had had enough of staff problems, arguments with medical aid funders and the huge amount of administration involved in running her own business, and her husband and friends were at the receiving end of her frustrated outbursts. The career she’d once loved had become a drudge, she felt trapped. Then changes in health legislation forced unwanted trade restrictions on pharmacists and each month Adrienne watched her profit margins shrink alongside her bank balance.
Next, a major pharmacy chain opened a block away, luring her staff and customers. Her ulcer flared up, she suffered regular headaches and was exhausted. Finally, with her bank and creditors making demands, she had to close her doors.
Adrienne was forced into change because the fence she’d been sitting on collapsed underneath her. Now, three years later, she’s a happier, more fulfilled person on a new adventure that has invigorated and energised her.
“Losing my pharmacy was the best thing that ever happened,” says Adrienne. “It forced me to look at what I really wanted to do with my life instead of restricting what I could do because I was afraid of wasting my education. With no business, I had time to do things I’d never done before – like spending time with my kids. I never realised just how much of their growing up I’d missed.
“One of my passions is cooking and now I had time to entertain. Next thing, a neighbour asked if I’d join her opening a tea garden on their wine farm. I look after the kitchen and she handles the clients. It takes me five minutes to get to work and because we close our kitchen at 2pm, I have the whole afternoon with my children. No more headaches or admin! I feel so much more alive. I wouldn’t go back to my old life for all the tea in China.”
So why do we fear change so much? Because we buy into a scarcity mentality; we see change as “less of” instead of “more of.” We ask: “What am I going to lose?” instead of:
“What do I stand to gain?’” What Adrienne is discovering is a valuable principle to live by: we never know the full story until we’re prepared to turn the page. When we’re in the midst of difficulties that call for change, it’s helpful to be open because where you are headed could be wonderful.
When events happen that tilt our world we’re, in effect, being given a chance to re-examine our habits – and the way that we think; to re-evaluate, so that we can make changes that leave us better off than before. Changes that leave us feeling reinvigorated because we’ve released ourselves from stagnant energy.
Difficult times may tempt us to become negative. But when you choose to embrace the idea of change bringing good, you clear the way for unexpected surprises and gifts.
As I say in my latest book, Mind Over Fatter: Feel Great Without Ever Dieting Again (Oshun), “It’s not just about taking lemons and making lemonade – it’s about realising that very often your life has improved because of having the lemons in the first place.” I once came upon a row of eucalyptus trees that helped me embrace change in my life. The trees had been chain-sawed off at stump level, but they didn’t die – instead they adapted and changed in quite the most glorious way.
They sprouted multiple boughs and grew into very different trees than they would have been – with just their stumps to hold the memory of their previous lives. This seemed to me to suggest that like trees, we too not only survive drastic change, but sprout and grow in multiple new ways that can enrich our lives. As Adrienne discovered, change – even unwelcome change – can be the start of an exciting new adventure.
Marci Anderson was also in a “too comfortable” rut when a life event persuaded her to re-evaluate. She’d been wanting out of her marriage for years; although she didn’t hate life with her husband, they’d grown apart and she just “knew” there had to be someone special out there if she just had the courage to make the break. But it was difficult to leave her comfort zone.
When her closest friend, Odette, developed ovarian cancer, Marci took a closer look at her own life and realised that she simply wasn’t getting as much out of each breath as she could. Odette never feared death: “Death is just a changed form of life, it’s not a time for fear, but a time to embrace moving on,” she told Marci.
Inspired by Odette’s acceptance of such enormous change, Marci was prompted to introduce into her life a new mantra in honour of her friend’s memory: “I’m receptive to moving on.” She stuck a picture of Odette on her fridge with these words written next to it, repeating this line to herself every day. She wrote the affirmation on Post-its and stuck them on her dashboard, her computer screen, her mirror… the words became a part of her thinking.
What Marci discovered is that when you set your mind on something, commit to making it happen and start taking action towards it, it’s as if there is a magical power that becomes unleashed and events conspire to help you on your way.
Marci finally took that all-important step; she left her husband. Astonishingly, she discovered that he too had wanted out and their divorce was amicable. She was amazed at how energised she felt, and within eight months she had a new man in her life.
As Franklin D Roosevelt once said: “There is nothing to fear but fear itself”.
*Not her real name
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