Being Happy in an Unhappy World — Accepting Change

Have you ever resisted change? You know, the kind of thing where you don’t like the weather that you’ve got that day. Now, that’s a minor example, but it’s true. We resist a cloudy day, or a rainy, or cool day. And how much greater our resistance to change is when it’s stuff that seems profound: a major new IT implementation at work, or sadly, the loss of a relationship, or any number of other things like a job going badly, or a loved one moving away. All those kinds of things are just basic reality changes, and we resist, resist, resist. Well, this video is all about how to overcome resistance.

As a coach, public speaker, and best-selling author, I, Paul Krismer, teach topics just like this one all around the world. So, stay tuned, and I’ll give you practical tools that you can use to make both yourself and those around you both happier and more successful. So, all of my work is about basic positive psychology: how to have a happier and more successful life using science-based tools to demonstrate how we can improve the psychology of our minds, and therefore improve the outcome and experience of our real-life worlds.

And you know, so much of our unhappiness in life is internally generated in our minds. In fact, I could argue that all of our unhappiness comes from there. Just last week, I did a video about how we believe we are a certain person: the likes and dislikes, preferences, the personality, all the commentary I make in my head, when in fact we’re not that at all. And David will put a link to that video in the description below, and you can maybe check that out. But it’s really relevant to say, what is it that’s going on when we resist change?

Well, this encouragement I have for you is simply to be really, really curious about that. When you’re taking, for example, our resistance to lousy weather, which is maybe a good example to start with because it’s super easy to understand and to be curious about without getting flooded with all kinds of emotional baggage that would come with bigger kinds of changes. And so, if we look at our resistance to the weather, well, what’s going on there? We might say, you know, “I just don’t want it to be cold. It’s going to be really brutal. And I, I can’t afford for it to rain today. I’m moving some stuff outside, and that’s how I’m going to ruin my day.” Well, it may require you to master some elements of change, but it doesn’t ruin your day. It’s just the weather. It’s just the weather.

You know, sometimes when I’ve given this example of not resisting the change in weather, people have said to me, “But it’s completely rational to be unhappy if the day is cold and rainy, and you had other things that you wanted to do.” And I guess, in some unusual and weird, twisted way, we could say it is rational because that kind of unexpected or undesirable reality, the weather, is not what you wanted. You wanted good weather for moving these things outside, and so it’s rational to be unhappy.

Is it really rational, or is it ridiculous? The weather is what it is. There’s absolutely nothing that you can do about it. Now, you may be able to alter your behaviors or your decisions about what you’re going to do to manage the weather. You might get rational about managing what is real. That’s the thing; the weather’s real. There’s no rational explanation for unhappiness derived from bad weather. So, if you can work with weather as a really good example about how to give up your desire for control over stuff that’s outside of your control, you start getting some tools about managing chains that’s much more complicated and challenging than frankly the weather. But the weather’s a great place to start.

And you can see how if you can deeply accept the change in weather, deeply accept it, welcome it, say thank you, “Here’s the weather. It’s raining and cool today,” and have zero F’s given for what the state of the weather is, you actually will see that it’s incredibly empowering. It provides you some optimism; you’re not going to let it ruin your day. It provides true rationality, “Oh, how do I adjust my life in the circumstances of my life given this reality: rainy, cloudy day.” And when you have those kinds of rational, optimistic, “I’ve got this,” kind of approaches to the change in the weather, then you, in fact, develop some mastery regarding change in general.

So, maybe start with the weather, but the same is true. These principles of curiosity and mastery apply to any change. So, things are going badly at work. There’s a huge IT change in, goodness knows, they usually are so difficult, and I’ve just figured out the last one. I don’t want this new IT change, and it’s poorly conceived, and the improvements the business is looking for aren’t going to materialize anyway, right? I can think all those things and resist, resist, resist. Most likely, unless you’re the vice president of technology in your company, the change is coming anyway. So, accept reality, that’s the first thing, and that’s that curiosity. Who am I that is experiencing these emotions about this change? And who am I to experience the change? Because if we can become curious about our reaction and see it for the reality that it is, “Oh, I’m resisting what’s going to happen. I’m resisting what’s real in my business organization. There’s an IT change coming,” and just become curious, who is that?

And when we can look at that objective, go, “Yeah, okay. I see that guy. I know that guy. That’s, that’s a part of me.” And now that I have this curiosity about me, rather than just reacting, I’m curious about the reaction. I can realize that, “Oh yeah, I better let this go. The IT change is happening anyway. And you know what? I’ve been good at some other IT changes. I remember learning this technology or that technology.” And I have this rational approach that I can take to that. I’m going to pay attention to the training we get. I’m going to get a little ahead of what the major changes are going to be, and I’m going to embrace the change to the extent I can. Even if I don’t prefer this change, I prefer to stay with the technology we’ve got. Totally fair, I’m acknowledging my preference. I accept the reality, I have this preference. Not except there’s this ID change coming, so I’m going to rationally respond to it, and I’m going to have rational optimism about my capacity to manage that change. I’m mastering the process of change.

And probably, this is a lifelong experience for almost all of us, to progressively have the invitation to manage change better and better. But until we accept the invitation, say, “I’m going to manage change, and manage my reaction to change, and be curious, optimistic, rational, master the ability to change,” we don’t grow any. Because there’s going to be only one guarantee in life, and that is that there will be a non-stop flood, continuous chain of change in your life. That is life. The only thing that’s constant is change. Whether it’s growing old, or the change in the weather, or relationship movement, or the decay of your house, or any other thing, change is constant. You can’t hold on, so don’t. Accept the change, and then be a happier, more rational person as a result. Hey, if you like this kind of content, please click the like button, subscribe to my channel. You get a new video every Sunday morning. Thanks for watching. See you next time.