Go back ten years in your life and then ask yourself whether that is where you imagined yourself being today. In most cases, the answer is “no.” Life doesn’t turn out how we expect at all. In fact, it’s often so chaotic that, as the decades pass, it becomes unrecognizable.
Change, though, is challenging. It’s hard to cope with. We want our lives to remain the same forever, but they often transform themselves beyond recognition. Everything eventually passes away.
Because change is inevitable, trying to pretend that it doesn’t exist is not a good strategy. Instead, we should embrace the impermanence of life and roll with it, even if that means losing people that we love.
In this post, we take a look at some of the strategies that you can use to cope with change. Here’s what to do:
Remind Yourself That There Are New Beginnings Whenever Something Ends
The nature of the world is for things to come to an end. Everything moves in cycles. Sometimes we’re riding high; other times, we’re laid low. That’s just the nature of the world that we live in.
Because of this, it is a good idea to remind yourself that old endings become new beginnings. New things are always flourishing in life, while older things are passing away. That’s just as true of relationships and careers as it is of biology.
Remembering things that have passed away, is okay. For instance, you can use pictures for grave markers. But embracing new beginnings is what really makes life special. The more that you can allow the world to happen around you, the better you will feel. It never ends.
Stick To A Regular Schedule
Even when things change, it can help to stick with your regular schedule. That means doing all the things that you would normally do in a day.
For example, if you break up with your partner or move to another country, wake up at the same time, do your exercise at a regular time, and eat the same food. Keep all the basics the same so that you have some continuity in your life. Avoid changing everything at once. It can disrupt you too much.
Think About Everything That You Have To Be Grateful For
As humans, we’re often in the habit of focusing on everything that’s wrong in our lives. It’s just the way our minds are set up. Focusing on the negative gives us a feeling of control and forces us to adapt to our environments.
But it’s also a tremendous source of unhappiness. When we are always looking at what is wrong, we forget to celebrate what’s right. We don’t have a balanced picture of who we are and what we can do in our lives.
For many of us, change is negative. We see all the problems that it brings instead of the solutions. We look at our new circumstances and assume that they aren’t as good as they were in the past.
The trick here is to see opportunity in every struggle. No matter what is happening in your life, no matter how hard it seems, it usually leads somewhere. When you ask great people how they got to where they wanted to be in their lives, they always went through some sort of crucible. They learned from the great challenges in their lives.
Being grateful in any situation, therefore, is a kind of superpower. When you trust the process, the outcomes matter less.
Don’t Spend Too Much Time On Social Media
If you’re going through significant change in your life, it is a good idea to steer clear of social media. While there is always a temptation to post about what’s happening to you, it makes it more likely that you will start comparing your life to others.
When you look at your friend’s lives, remind yourself that you’re looking at a highlight reel of their lives. What you’re seeing isn’t really a true picture of how they spend their time. While it might seem like they are constantly surrounded by friends or going on trips abroad, that’s not usually the reality for most people. For the vast majority, daily life is quite mundane.
Give Yourself A Break
When it comes to change, we are often our own worst enemies. When life doesn’t go the way we planned, we beat ourselves up, blaming ourselves for whatever goes wrong.
When this happens, gently remind yourself that the world will always go its own way. Even if you try to stop it with all your willpower, it will mostly do what it wants to do.
Rather than seeing yourself as someone who has to control everything that happens, just allow whatever happens to be. That way, you flow along more effortlessly with the stream of life instead of resisting it all the time.
If you made a mistake, give yourself a break. Don’t come down on yourself like a ton of bricks. Everyone makes bad decisions in their lives, usually because they are fearful.
If something goes wrong, try to laugh about it. Ultimately, nothing that happens in life is all that serious.
Be More Proactive
Because change is inevitable, it helps to be proactive in life. That means preparing yourself for the challenges that lie ahead before they actually arrive.
What does this mean in practice? Essentially, it means making yourself less fragile. Ways of doing this include:
- Making your body as healthy as it can be
- Diversifying your sources of income
- Building up storeholds of wealth you can draw on
- Maintaining strong relationships with a large number of capable people
- Spreading your assets out across the globe
- Building real skills that will be valuable in any market
- Controlling your need for attachment
Get Support
Lastly, if your life is changing beyond recognition, get some support. You don’t have to go through life alone. If something big happens in your life, there will be plenty of people willing to help you out and run errands for you.
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