When we are unhappy in life, we tend to look to the one thing that we think might make things better – change. Change something, someone, ourselves, anything.
What kind of relationship do you have with change? What kind of feelings come up for you when you hear that word? It might be anxiety, fear, excitement or anticipation, and what you feel will vary from day to day and moment to moment. Change feels exciting if we have the emotional reserve and energy to put towards that change, or if we feel we are equipped with the skills required to manage that change and still be ok. It feels scary if there is too much of it all at once, if we are not prepared or if we don’t have a clue how to deal with it, or no support from others if we need it.
And yet, change is the only constant in life, the only true certainty – so if we want to maintain good mental health and emotional wellbeing, then frankly we had better get used to it.
Change is powerful and effective, but only if we know when to make it happen, when to trigger it and when it is the right tool to use.
To do this, we need to understand what is possible to change and – just as importantly – what we cannot change, to make sure we are putting our efforts into the right channels and not wasting our energy.
We can change ourselves, our thinking, our actions and our choices. We can change how we view a situation; we can reframe a circumstance so we focus on the positives; and we can change our focus of attention to the positive. We can change how we see life, how we see ourselves and how we view others. These are great things to put our efforts into.
But what isn’t worth sweating about, and what can’t we change?
Other people
One of the biggest sources of tension in life starts with us trying to change other people. Sometimes we do it out of love because we think they are making poor choices, sometimes we do it from fear because we don’t want to lose them and sometimes we do it because we want things a certain way. Whatever the reason, it won’t be successful. We can support the people we love, we can give them advice and we can be there for them – but we can never change them. And frankly, we shouldn’t try.
The most powerful way to inspire someone to make changes in their life if we are worried about them is to live the advice we are trying to preach. Trying to make someone change who they are, how they behave, or their choices will only lead to your relationship breaking down. Accept people as they are, and then make a decision if you want them in your life or not.
Certain situations
We can’t change the people we love getting older, we can’t stop life circumstances changing or people leaving. We can’t go back in time and make different choices. Within any situation you have an element of control that consists of your thoughts, feelings and behaviours. Changing these things can sometimes alter the circumstances in our lives, but not always. You can change your expectations of certain outcomes and you can change how you handle a recurring tricky scenario. You can change how you look back on the past, learn lessons and change how you respond now. When you can’t change a situation, stop wasting your energy trying to fight or resist it, accept it, do your best and take regular breaks from it.
The past
It sounds obvious but you would be amazed by how many of us spend a lot of our mental and psychological time trying to change the past. Regret, labelling things as a mistake, guilt and blame are all powerful and common tools that we use to keep us stuck in the past. The past is over. You can apologise, you can take responsibility for your actions, you can now choose to behave differently but as soon you realise that you can’t change the past, you are free to focus on the only thing that will make your future any different – right now. Change how much you live in the past, and then you will be able to change your future.
