Desire for control can have you searching for what is safe and certain. Safety and Certainty are not the same thing. This is an important distinction to make when navigating the unknown. Read more about that here.
As you realise change is happening despite all of your efforts to resist and contain it, your emotions go hyperbolic and you feel everything from anger, sadness, denial, regret, confusion (and many besides), often simultaneously.
According to brains much smarter than mine, the universe has been unfolding for 13.772 billion years, and life on Earth about 3.5 billion of them. The natural world might have a thing or two to offer us here. Change in the natural world follows a pattern: Disruption; Disorder; New Order; New Relationship. When an organism is required to evolve, it can only reference its constituent parts to re-form them (it only has itself to work with).
The chaos and disorder are a necessary step in breaking down to rebuild.
Think about it like having one set of Lego bricks. To make something new, you have to pull apart what you have already made.
In the natural world the new order that comes from chaos allows the organism to be in a more symbiotic relationship with its changed environment. The most successful organisms on the planet are those that have the greatest flexibility for adapting. This is probably true for leaders as well.
In your emotional journey through change, the act of acceptance is the calm after the storm. It is when you make peace with what is happening around you.
Unfortunately, you cannot force this - mindset will help but it takes the time it takes. Sooner or later however, you will see the possibilities for a new future and your place in it. Hope returns, and you might even get excited by it.
Matt helps leaders and teams develop their mindset and resourcefulness so they can relate productively, communicate effectively, and navigate challenge, change and complexity with confidence.
Through coaching and training, he empowers leaders with better choices and more options for progress - building better leadership from the inside out.
Curious what that could look like for you or your organisation? Let’s talk.