Form the habit of remaining open-minded and adaptable to new information and
circumstances. When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, instead of becoming
upset or frustrated, practice looking into the change or reversal for the opportunity or
benefit it might contain.
Superior men and women are invariably those who remain calm and keep their wits
about them in the midst of unexpected turbulence. They take a deep breath, they
relax, and they assess the situation objectively. They keep themselves calm and
unemotional by asking questions and seeking information when things don’t work out
as they expected. For example, if someone doesn’t fulfill a commitment, or if a sale is
canceled, or fails to go through, they keep their minds clear and steady by asking
questions, such as “What exactly happened in this situation?” They deal with change by
focusing on getting the facts before reacting. They develop the ability to cut through
the confusion and ask questions such as “Why did this happen? How did it happen?
How serious is it? Now that it has happened, what are the various things we can do?”
Robert Fritz, in his book The Path of Least Resistance, makes a clear distinction
between effective people and ineffective people. He says that ineffective people have a
tendency to be in a reactive-responsive mode of behavior much of the time. Instead of
consciously and deliberately choosing their courses of action, they react to what is
going on around them, and they respond to their emotions, sometimes blowing up and
sometimes becoming depressed. They ride an emotional roller coaster. And the very
best they can hope for, in this mode of behavior, is to get back to even, where they
were before they became upset.
The superior person, according to Robert Fritz, concentrates his attention on his
“future vision.” Whenever an unexpected change or setback occurs, the superior person
immediately focuses his mind on where he wants to be at a future time. This future
vision is something that he has planned and given a lot of thought to, so it is fairly easy
to conjure up at a moment’s notice.
Since your conscious mind can hold only one thought at a time, when you
deliberately insist upon thinking about your goal or your future vision, your mind
immediately becomes calm and positive, and you feel in control. Superior people
always choose the future over the past. They always ask, “What do we do now?” rather
than lose time and energy by looking around for someone to blame or criticize. They
keep themselves performing at their best by thinking and talking about a desired future
state.
There is a little poem, “Two men looked out through prison bars./ One saw the mud;
the other saw the stars.” You can greatly improve your ability to deal with change by
focusing your attention on the future, and by seeing the glass as half-full rather than
half-empty.
The critical issue in dealing with change is the subject of control. Most of your stress
and unhappiness comes as a result of feeling out of control in a particular area of your
life. If you think about the times or places where you feel the very best about yourself,
you will notice that you have a high degree of control in those places. One of the
reasons why you like to get home after a trip is that, after you walk through your front
door, you feel completely in control of your environment. You know where everything
is. You don’t have to answer to anyone. You can relax completely. You are back in
control.
Psychologists call this the difference between an internal locus of control and an
external locus of control. Your locus of control is where you feel the control is located
for a particular part of your life. A person with an external locus of control feels that he
is controlled by forces outside of himself. Most people feel that they are controlled by
their boss, or their bills, or their relationships, or their childhood experiences, or their
external environment. When a person has an external locus of control, he or she feels a
high degree of stress. And with an external locus of control, a person is very tense and
uneasy about change of any kind. Change represents a threat that may leave the
individual worse off than before.
On the other hand, the person with an internal locus of control enjoys a high degree
of self-determination. He feels that he is very much in charge of his life. He plans his
work and works his plan. He accepts a high degree of responsibility, and he believes
that everything that happens, happens for a reason, and that he is the primary creative
force in his life.
Since the only thing over which you have complete control is the content of your
conscious mind, your ability to deal with change begins with your taking full, complete
control over the things you think. As Thomas Huxley said, “Experience is not what
happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you.” Since change is
inevitable and continuous, it is how you think about what is happening to you that is
most important in determining how change affects you, and whether you use it to your
advantage or let it work to your disadvantage.
In his book Celebrations of Life, Rene Dubos says that we fear change more today
than ever before, and for less reason. The reason you fear change is because you are
afraid that you will be worse off as a result. No one fears change that implies
improvement. For example, if you learned that you were going to have to change your
life-style because you had just won a lottery, this is not the kind of change that you
would avoid or anticipate with dread. It is change that implies unpleasant surprises that
you fear and become anxious about because it causes you to feel that you have lost a
certain amount of control in that part of your life.
Your aim is to become a “change master,” to embrace change, to welcome change,
and to ride the tides of change. You do this by taking control of the direction of change
in your life and assuring that it is predominately positive and toward improvements you
desire.
Boat builders know that the deeper the keel of a sailing vessel, the more stable it will
be in storms, squalls and gusts of wind. The same holds true for you. The deeper your
keel, or the stabilizing factors in your life, the less likely it is that you will be blown
over, or off course, when unexpected change occurs.
You can deepen your keel and increase your stability by setting big goals for yourself
and making clear, written plans for their accomplishment. Goals enable you to control
the direction of change. With goals, change becomes planned and deliberate, instead of
random and haphazard. Goals assure that the changes that take place in your life are
primarily self-determined and self-directed. With clear, specific goals, the changes that
take place will tend to be positive and move you toward something that you want to
achieve, rather than blow you off course.
For example, if you are in business or in sales, you will experience a continuous
series of large and small disappointments and setbacks. That is the nature of the game.
They are inevitable and unavoidable. Some things work out, and some things don’t.
Sometimes you win; sometimes you lose. In spite of your best efforts, unexpected and
unpredictable events will derail your best-laid plans. This endless process of change and
setbacks begins when you first enter into the world of work, and it continues for the
rest of your life. Problems, changes are like the rain.they just happen.
But if you set clear goals for your work, for your family life and for your personal
development, then no matter what happens, you can concentrate your thinking on your
goals and take a long-term view of your current circumstances. You can, in effect, rise
above the challenges of the moment, and keep your eyes on the guiding stars of your
life and your most cherished dreams.
If you are in sales, and you are working toward a series of sales goals, you will be
developing a wide range of prospective customers. You will be working simultaneously
on customers who are both short-term and medium-term, as well as large and small
prospects. Meanwhile, you will be working on yourself, to become better and more
knowledgeable in your field. You will have plans and engage in activities with the
important people in your life. With clear goals, you will be multidimensional rather than
one-dimensional. A setback or disappointment in any one part of your life will be
quickly offset by the fact that you are busy in many other areas, and you simply won’t
allow yourself to invest too much emotional energy in one particular thing that doesn’t
work out to plan.
With a clear idea of where you’re going and what you want to accomplish, you
develop resilience, which is the ability to bounce back rather than to break. You develop
what is called the “hardy personality” and become the type of person who is resistant
to the negative emotions that affect people who have no goals or direction.
The first step in dealing with any change is simply to accept the change as a reality.
Acceptance is the opposite of rejection or resistance. Acceptance keeps your mind calm
and positive. As William James said, “The starting point in dealing with any difficulty is
to be willing to have it so.” The minute you accept that a change has occurred, and that
you can’t cry over spilled milk, you become more capable of dealing with the change
and turning it to your advantage.
One of the best ways to deal with the worry that is often generated by unexpected
changes is to sit down and answer, on paper, the question: “What exactly am I
worrying about?”
In medicine, it is said that accurate diagnosis is half the cure. When you sit down and
define a worry situation clearly on paper, it suddenly becomes less stressful to you, and
it will often resolve itself. In any case, when it is clearly defined, you have diagnosed it,
and you can now do something about it.
The second step is to ask yourself, “What is the worst possible thing that can happen
in this worry situation?” Much worry and stress comes from the refusal to face what
might happen as a result of your difficulty or problem. When you clearly define the
worst possible outcome, and write it down next to the definition of the problem, you will
find that, whatever it is, you can handle it. Often your worries will begin to evaporate
as soon as you have clearly determined the worst that might happen as a result.
Now decide to accept the worst possible outcome should it occur. Mentally resolve
that, even if the worst possible consequences ensue from this situation, it will not be
the end of the world for you. You will accept it and carry on. In fact, it could probably
be a lot worse. The very act of accepting the worst possible outcome completes the
cycle of eliminating from your mind the stress and anxiety associated with the
situation.
You are now ready for the third step in dealing with change, and that is to adjust
your behaviors and actions to the new situation. Ask yourself, “What are all the things I
can do to make sure that the worst possible outcome does not occur?” Sometimes we
call this “damage control.” In the business schools, this is an important part of decision
making, and it is called the “mini-max regret solution.” What can you do to minimize
the maximum damage that can occur from an unexpected change or setback? As you
begin thinking of all the things you can do, you are adjusting your mind to the new
information and preparing to take steps to deal with the change effectively.
The final part of this four-step method for dealing with change is to improve on the
existing situation. Often, a change signals that your plans are incomplete or that you
might be heading in the wrong direction. Serious changes, which seemingly create real
problems, are often signals that you are on the wrong track. There is an old saying,
“Crisis is change trying to take place.” If, instead of resisting change, like a pine tree
that snaps in a strong wind, you bend with change, like a willow tree, you will often find
that the change is a healthy and positive step toward achieving your goals.
W. Clement Stone, the founder of Combined Insurance Company of America, is
famous for his attitude of being an “inverse paranoid.” He is convinced that everything
that happens is part of a conspiracy to help him to be more successful. Whenever
something unexpected occurs, he immediately says, “That’s good!” and then looks into
the situation to find out exactly what is good about it.
If you look into any change, you will always find something good and beneficial for
you in the change. Look for the valuable lesson contained within every setback. What is
the hidden advantage that you can turn to your benefit? Is this change a signal that, if
properly responded to, will save you a much bigger change or problem in the future?
Since your mind can hold only one thought at a time, as I mentioned, if you force
yourself to look for the positive aspect of any change, you’ll keep your mind clear, and
you’ll keep your attitude optimistic and confident.
Viktor Frankl said that the last great freedom of man is the freedom to choose his
attitude under any given set of circumstances. You cannot control what happens to you,
but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be
mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.
The mark of a superior person is what is called “tolerance for ambiguity.” This simply
means that you have the capacity to deal effectively in a rapidly changing situation. The
higher up you go.the greater your income and responsibilities, the higher your status
and position.the faster the rate of change will be around you. At every stage, it will be
your ability to function with calmness, clarity and quiet assurance that will mark you as
the kind of person who is going places in life. In the final analysis, your ability to
perform effectively in a world of ongoing change is the true measure of how well-
developed a person you really are. And the keys are to accept change, to adjust to
