Impact of Change…

We all experience change and we all go through the rollercoaster of emotions. Some of us simply fly through the change and others take their time experiencing the highs and lows.

Change always involves loss, whether it be an actual item, a person, a role or an identity.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s Grief Curve explains it perfectly:-

Shock/Surprise – Even though you may have known about the change there is always that initial shock and surprise that it has happened.

Denial – The second stage is try and pretend it has not happened.

Frustration – we realise that the change is now happening and what the loss will mean. This is the stage where we demonstrate quite lively emotions and behaviours. There is a sense of outrage that this is happening.

Low point – Sometimes described as the valley of despair. We reach the real dip in the curve where we are not sure how to move forward. We have flooded the emotional part of our brain and se we have lost the sense of how to think logically.

Experimentation – To move us forward we must try really hard with new ideas and some of these may lead us to the next stage of making decisions. Sadly we can try an idea and it fails and we feel back at the bottom of the curve. Experimenting is about trying lots of new things – go for quantity not quality at this moment to propel yourself forward.

Decisions – Make some good decisions and you are high up the side of getting you out of the change curve. You have moved back into thinking mode and you feel in control of the change.

Integration – Your experimentation and decisions have come together and you have made good progress at getting out to the curve.

There are many change curves in life and the more we get used to navigating them by expressing the stage we are at and how it feels. We will always have the initial uncertainty, but we can roadmap our way through it and name the emotions we are feeling.

Please do get in touch bev@nuggetsoflearning.co.uk