Changing is simply hard to do. Right now we are in the middle of massive change, we are moving from Denver to Seattle, I am changing how my job is done and what my future responsibilities will be, and my wife is changing the leadership in her very successful non profit to accommodate the move. This in conjunction with the fact that when you move somewhere new you literally have to change everything, I mean do they have grocery stores in Seattle?
1 - Change is hard because we don't know what is coming down the road. Seth Godin once had a great post about doing tomorrow over because most of us know exactly what tomorrow is going to look like already.
2 - Change means stretching yourself, it exposes what you don't know. When you literally have to pack up your life and move it that means getting at boxes that have not been touched in years. Sometimes the simple act of seeing what is in that box is exhausting.
3 - Change means stress testing areas of your life. When you make a large change you are going to put the stress of that change on our relationships, both personal and spiritual. My wife's family is fine when we are watching football together not talking about the emotional boundaries that have been put up over the last decade and a half, but when they know you are taking away their grand babies there is a stress test on what the relationship can handle.
4 - Change forces optimism or pessimism. When you are pushing into the unknown you must have a feeling about what is going to happen, that feeling that bubbles up is how you view the world. It is scary how often those feelings get to stay in our subconscious and we think we are just operating without emotion.
5 - Change usually leads to more change. When you get married you usually have to move, then at some point you have kids, etc. Change is beautiful because it forces growth but if growth is terrifying and you are pessimistic then change simply breeds more fear.
So there you go, just go ahead and put your fears out there and look at them. An exercise that I have been focused on through this incredibly stressful week has been naming my fear, putting a Bible verse against it and then anchoring that verse with a physical action, such as a nod or a deep breath. My fear is letting down my wife, my verse is "fear not because I am always with you" and then I grab my arm or my leg or my shoulder and squeeze it for second like a coach would do after he gives you instruction.
Go make a huge change, but don't be stupid about it, change is hard and you have to be ready to into a fight, but as "Fight Club" taught us, fighting is living.
