Change - We Need It

Many decades from now, we will be discussing at the dinner table, about these chain of events that we are witnessing right now.

Let's face it, the world is currently going through a systemic change that have caught some of us by surprise. We might not have anticipated the collapse of Lehman Brothers, or the successful bid for presidency by Barack Obama, or that Lewis Hamilton will be the youngest black driver to emerge an F1 champion.

Sometime back, if you were to ask me what is a constant, I would have responded "change", like everybody else. Well, for a fact, I have always subscribed to that point of view that while change is necessary, it should not be change for change sake.

Change, can however be stressful for many people, as change is something that is out of our circle of influence. Of course when we try to control something that is outside our circle of influence it inevitably cause us stress. If in doubt, try controlling your teenage children. Certainly you can try, using threats, bribes, or even your authority; you may win the battle but lose the war. In other words, you may succeed in getting them to do what you want, but that relationship is strained. Same goes for supervisor-supervisee relationships.

Change, can also be fun, exciting, and even rewarding for others. That happens when they choose, rightfully, to control their own attitudes and actions towards change. In other words, they choose to embrace the changes and respond to that, based on their Triple A approach; attitudes, abilities, and actions. However, even for this group of individuals they are only responding to the changes, or in a word, reactive. They watch things happen and then choose their Triple A approach and respond to it.

How one can really benefit from change is to first accept the fact that change is a constant, change is here to stay, and change will be a part of our lives. Following that, one can also anticipate the change; then choose your Triple A approach to it.

Finally, there is also a small group of individuals who not only anticipate, but 'make' 'change' happen. For this small group change can be really rewarding, not necessarily only financially but also rewarding in terms of relationships, achievements, emotionally, and spiritually.

How can you and I be part of this small group of individuals, so that only can we embrace changes, anticipate changes, but also create changes? I believe, to do so, we need to embrace another constant in life, and that constant comprises of a list of principles.

Before we discuss in details what are these principles, let us first get an understanding of what are principles. Principles are essentially natural laws. In other words, these principles apply to you and I, whether we choose to acknowledge them, work against them, or even ignore them (at your own peril).

An example would be gravity. You can acknowledge it or ignore it; it will still work on you; unless you are not standing on this planet. You can choose to ignore it, and maintain that attitude that gravity has no effect on you by walking out of the window of a high rise building, only to realise too late that, no one on earth escapes from the pull of gravity. Looking at it from a different angle, natural laws or principles have consequences that you cannot ignore.

As such, principles are the other constant in life that we cannot ignore. So, what might those principles be that can help us become part of that small group that only acknowledge change, but are the ones that make changes happen? We'll examine these principles in our next discussion.