Do you ever wonder if you should switch something up?
Maybe you are contemplating a new job, or maybe you are considering moving but just can’t figure out if you should take the leap…well today I want to talk to you about taking that leap and implementing change.
In my own life I have leaped numerous times. I am not going to lie, many of those times I fell flat on my face, but a lot of other times I have soared and as a result, I feel like I can help you a bit with this. Today, I am going to talk about three things I think are very important to know and understand about change.
The first thing I want to say is that change IS NOT EASY. I am going to say that again so that it sinks in…CHANGE IS NOT EASY. That is why we never want to do it. It pushes us out of our comfort zones. It makes us feel icky. We have to do soul searching and self reflection and it’s just plain hard. But here is what I can tell you…once you come out on the other side, you are never going to regret making that choice because even if it was the wrong one, it is still going to lead you in the direction you are supposed to go.
Here is something else that I think people forget about change…nine times out of ten you can go back. Say you move, why couldn’t you move back? Maybe you leave your job, they might hire you back if you left on good terms and were a valuable employee (they did for me). Would it be annoying to go back? Yes. But, you can still do it. Nothing is that far out of reach to where if it went absolutely horrible, you couldn’t change your mind. In fact, I think there are times when changing your mind is absolutely appropriate and could happen, but you still have to remember that no matter what there was growth and gain from making that switch.
Thirdly, is that you have to give change time. You can’t expect to make a shift and it to be easy right off the bat or for it to feel right. Sometimes that happens, and that is amazing, but most of the time there is a lot of growing pains and it can take a solid year before you know if it was the right decision to be made. It took me over THREE YEARS to finally feel like Charlotte was home and to find my place here. Three years. There were countless times I wanted to move back home and honestly it caused a lot of strain on John and I because I was so unhappy. Now, we have been here for five years and I have a hard time picturing myself ever moving back, but if I hadn’t given myself space and time to figure out it all out, I would have missed a lot of opportunities (i.e. like this BLOG!).
My advice for when you make a shift is to give it a solid year. After that, if you still feel it was the wrong choice or wrong fit, then you can start to figure out what the best next step is, but a year is a solid timeframe to allow you to somewhat transition and settle in to a new situation.
I hope you enjoyed this post and these tips help you the next time you consider a big life change. Be sure to stay tuned because this is actually one of a three part series on change, coming soon!
xoxo,
Melissa
