How to handle change in your career and beyond
Image: Tommy Daynjer/Shutterstock

How to handle change in your career and beyond

6 Apr 2018

Handling big changes in your life, even positive ones, can be difficult, but adopting some of these techniques could alleviate the stress.

Fearing change is a lot like fearing the tide coming in. It’s going to happen regardless of how desperately you try to prevent it, and the fruitless process of trying to guard against the inevitable will leave you awash with anxiety (like seawater flooding in, I suppose, if we’re going to keep this maritime metaphor afloat).

Some changes are good, though. A promotion, a new job, moving to an exciting new city, a budding romantic relationship – all of these are things that people welcome, but research indicates that even positive change will cause the body to feel stressed and create a sense that you don’t have control.

How are you meant to dive head first into a new career opportunity when you feel like your body is betraying you, the cortisol pumping out of your adrenal glands and knitting knots into your back like your grandmother’s crochet?

Luckily, the people at Pounds to Pocket have compiled this guide with some practical steps you can take to weathering changes in your life, career or otherwise.

It can be beneficial, for example, to make a conscious decision to take time out to appreciate how a change is benefiting your life. Do this even if it’s a positive change, to remind yourself of the positive outcome of the newfound uncertainty.

To counterbalance a change, you can develop a new routine to keep you grounded. This could be anything from treating yourself to a coffee every morning to walking your dog regularly.

Keeping a journal could also be really beneficial to you at this time. Verbalising your feelings can help you make more sense of them, and perhaps committing them to paper will help to reassert some sense of control over the situation.

For some more excellent techniques to help you cope with change, both personally and professionally, check out the infographic below.

Infographic: Pounds to Pocket

Eva Short
By Eva Short

Eva Short was a journalist at Silicon Republic, specialising in the areas of tech, data privacy, business, cybersecurity, AI, automation and future of work, among others.

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