The C(hange) word

The Change Word

I was recently at a conference in Portugal and was asked “Why Change?” so often I thought I’d write about it so here goes.

Most people in my experience resist change – they respond by sulking (at best) when someone “changes” their world to having a complete meltdown at worst.  Heraclitus of Ephesus said in the 6th century B.C. “There is nothing permanent except change” and those words are still as true 27 centuries later.

Here’s the thing – change is a fact of life and we are changing all the time, even though we may not always realize it! For instance our bodies are constantly changing – we get a new stomach lining every 6 days, our skin, hair and nails grow every single day and in fact the cellular composition of our bodies changes each nano-second (that ‘s a billionth of a second)!

We also change psychologically and mentally each day – we know more and think a little differently today than we did yesterday, sometimes simply because of new information or often because of new experiences and interactions with the world we are in. A world, which (bleedingly obvious I know, but has to be said) is changing very rapidly in multiple ways and we must adapt if we want to keep up and succeed in a changing economy and ever-smaller world thanks to speedier communication, cheap air-travel and the G-word (Globalisation).

So since we cannot change the fact that we are changing, we may as well embrace it and work it. I firmly believe that the people who will be truly successful in this time and beyond will be those who embrace change, take advantage of it and even control and direct it rather than resist it and react to it. What do I mean by that??? Well just that change need not always be something that’s imposed from the outside alone, it’s possible to actually create the change we want in our lives if we want to enough and have the discipline to follow through. Plus, it’s more fun when things change than when they always stay the same – if we knew the outcome to every situation in advance, or had the same old, same old every single day, I think we’d all be bored stiff!

So how can we embrace change and make it work for us? In my personal experience one of the keys and perhaps the most critical, is Clarity – complete clarity on what you actually want and why. Clarity on what and why makes it possible to focus on and answer the question how. And here’s the thing – the moment you ask the question how, your focus is on making it happen and you can now find or create a way. If you’re not sure of the what and not really clear on the why, it’s almost impossible to focus in – imagine trying to hit several moving targets at once! If there is one thing I encourage everyone to do, it’s become really clear on what you want. The other advantage is once you know the what and the why, it’s easy to avoid getting distracted as you can instantly decide on whether any new opportunity fits in with your goals and say No when necessary. The ability to say No is critical IMHO as it ensures that we focus on what we want rather than getting pulled in many (often undesirable) directions at once.

I will be sharing some ideas on how to become clear on what and why and also the other keys (according to me) on how to actually befriend change and use it and direct it in coming days so watch this space!

Best wishes,

Piya

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9 Responses to The C(hange) word
  1. Ron
    July 14, 2010 | 9:14 pm

    Great start to an age-old topic.

    • Piya Khanna
      July 15, 2010 | 9:25 am

      Cheers Ron – 2,700 years and counting and we still are’nt comfortable with Change!

      More to come…

  2. ray
    July 14, 2010 | 10:41 pm

    heya!
    nice blog. i really like all the examples..and the clarify of the author ;)

  3. Michelle
    July 14, 2010 | 10:58 pm

    Love it.

    Clarity. The other C word.

    • Piya Khanna
      July 15, 2010 | 9:27 am

      Clarity is the other C word – absolutely critical which is why it’s the first key to handling change. In fact the C in my “keys” is Clarity, you’ll know what I mean in subsequent posts :)

  4. Leila
    July 15, 2010 | 1:20 pm

    Yes Piya, can’t agree more!

  5. Natalie
    July 15, 2010 | 6:09 pm

    Piya, what a great blog! I’ll be tweeting this for sure! Thanks, Natalie

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