Change. It can be a fearful exchange or an exciting challenge, it could also be a fascinating exchange or a dreadful challenge; pick your poison. We all face change just about every day, and the choices we make from those changes can build us up or destroy everything we have made, that is just the fun of life.
When faced with change, I always review my five “W’s”: Who, what, when, where and why. The first four; who, what, when and where are usually pretty easy to figure out.
Who will be affected by the change that I am about to make? Sometimes this one can be quite difficult as I navigate all the channels of people who may be affected by the decision that I am about to make.
What will happen when I make my change? Or what is it that I am going to change? This one can be pretty evident as we can see that a change needs to be made, rarely is it ever not apparent that a change has to happen. We just sometimes refuse to recognize it.
Where will the change take place? This is probably the easiest of the 5 “W’s” of change. Where can sometimes be a variable, but most often we know where this change has to happen.
When will the change take place? Again, this one is quite simple. We may dilly-dally about making a change to ensure that it is the perfect time to make our move. But, overall we know when a change should take place, we just let our fear slow us down.
Why make a change? Oh, this is the most significant question of them all. It is where real change lives or dies. We have to figure out why we even want to change. Then we wonder why we have the choices we have and why they are so good or bad! The why in our lives is the most challenging thing to figure out because often our why is tied to emotion. You may be able to describe a piece of art to someone, but you can never accurately explain why you love it so much. You just do.
Why we need a change comes down to a million factors, and we can spend hours, days, years and an entire lifetime trying to figure them all out. A majority of the changes in our lives were made when we didn’t entirely know why, we just did it, and it either worked out, or it epically failed. It was only we saw the results of our change did we really figure out our “why.”
As we enter our new year and we search for goals to achieve and dreams to chase, it is best to settle on our “why” or, at the very least, have faith that our “why” will become clear to us sometime down the road. This is a courageous way to make a change but when the “why” is clear, the “how” is much easier to execute.