Dudely Wisdom: Anticipating and Prepping For Change

All of us face change in our life at one time or another. Sometimes we love it, look forward to it and enjoy the preparations that are involved in making it happen, like going on a trip. On other occasions, change can be very distressing. Usually occurring without warning, we are usually unprepared for it. We can feel quite disorientated when change is unexpected and it can produce physical reactions we may feel we have little control over.

Facing unplanned change with a prepared mind helps to re-balance life even when it seems to be out of our control. If we accept that change is inevitable, we see the sense in thinking about and preparing to deal with it well ahead of when it actually happens. It also helps us reflect on how we will deal with our responses when faced with stress and change. This kind of stress can be dealing with the death of a loved one, or something like a natural disaster.

Taking the time to plan and prepare for change is not inviting fate, but facing reality. People who work in occupations that involve dealing with sudden unexpected emergencies, are in a state of readiness at all times. They learn to anticipate all possible scenarios by learning how to deal with them before they occur. They learn how to prevent the situation or minimize its harm, and they learn to enact certain actions when these events do occur. That’s is why they are usually called ‘first responders’.

We gain valuable insight into how to prepare for change by learning how to apply their approaches to potential change and stressful situations. We prepare for change, or potential stresses in three ways: Firstly, the higher the risk of something happening, the more we should anticipate it likely to happen. People living in areas where there is a high risk of a natural disaster occurring, prepare for its inevitably, by preparing their surroundings each year and psychologically being ready for it. I wish I would have been better prepared for Hurricane Irma, but hey, that’s how we learn.

Contrary to people may think, being psychologically prepared for change is possible. Although it is impossible to know what it will be like to face being a parent for example, we can prepare ourselves by reading and identifying possible areas of concern we may personally face in our new parenting role. Books can prep you, but they can’t save you from being pooped and peed on, it’s going to happen, lol.

But in reality, the only true way to learn most things is to just live through them, take the mistakes made as lessons, learn from them, and move forward. Also just listen to people who have done it. You will be surprised at what you can learn.

Thirdly, we can learn to manage our responses and thoughts in times of minor changes and challenge. As we do this, we are providing ourselves with invaluable training. Learning how to deal with the many minor challenges and changes we face daily, will help us to develop the skills to deal with the unexpected major ones. One way to educate yourself in how to deal with important life challenges is to take a first aid course and maybe some more advanced emergency preparedness training. These types of courses are invaluable in the things they can teach you, like saving lives. It’s also good to take some mountaineering courses, you can learn allot, even for urban situations.

So to wrap it up, don’t be scared to go through changes or stressful situations. The biggest thing you can do is to learn from those situations, any mistakes made, use them as a learning lesson, and keep moving. In time you will be able to handle just about any situation that is thrown at you.