Monthly Featured Article (April 2018)

Introduction <
Chapter 1 - The Fear of Change <
Chapter 2 - The Power of Change <
Chapter 4 - Enjoy Your New Beginnings >

Making A Fresh Start: Embracing New Beginnings
Chapter 3 - How to Embrace New Beginnings

by Susie J. Briscoe

Making changes in your life usually causes happiness and fulfillment, but many times change can cause other changes that catch you unaware. When you make positive changes in your life, the “butterfly effect” is far reaching. For example, smokers who quit may find that they aren’t comfortable being around their old smoker friends anymore.

As you progress on your journey of change and to new and positive beginnings, you may have anxiety or doubts about whether you can keep up the effort that change most surely brings.

Some things you can do to ensure that you embrace, rather than fear change, include:

Take the initiative to explore all aspects of each change you make in your life. For example, if you change jobs or career, learn all you can about the new place, tasks, and people you work with.
Have patience. Change means that aspects of your life will experience some upheavals. They could be small, almost unnoticeable changes; or they could be the type that puts your entire life into a tailspin. Be patient with these new changes. Eventually, you will begin to enjoy the new beginnings – especially if they’re positive ones.
Get excited about your new beginnings. The reason you chose to make changes is that you know you need it. Whether it’s smoking, losing weight, changing career paths, or relationship changes, it’s bound to make you a better and happier person. Think of the future and how exciting it will be.
Hang out with supportive people. It’s difficult for a non-smoker to surround himself with smokers after a hard-won fight to quit – just as it’s difficult for your newfound positivity to be surrounded by naysayers and negativity. Focus on those persons who encourage you and are excited about your changes.
Don’t look back. Looking back at how you were before change can make you doubt your decisions. Sometimes it’s difficult to become comfortable with the changes you’ve made, but know that it was a decision made with confidence and because you wanted to improve your life.
Don’t fret over what could go wrong. Things might not go as smoothly as you thought they would when you decided to change, but focusing on the possibility that you might fail will make it worse or more difficult to maintain the changes you’ve made. Focusing on the positive outcome will ensure that you will succeed.
Seek advice. Many others have made the same changes you’re now experiencing. Seek advice from someone you know who has made the same changes you’re making and find out what they feared or how they might have made different choices along the way.

Change is About Making Good Choices

Part of embracing the new beginnings you’ve set forth in your life is making continuous good choices in the future. Most people really want to change, but their choices don’t reflect that goal.

If you find that good choices are difficult to maintain after you’ve enacted change in your life, you can either lower your expectations of yourself by changing your goals to make them less of an effort or you can heighten expectations for yourself to match the goals you’ve set.

The nature of change is that you’ll be making efforts at some point that cease to be fun or inspiring. Sometimes positive changes are tedious and stressful, but these are usually the times when the changes you make really make progress toward the goals you’ve set for yourself.

Only with dedication and determination to make desired changes in your life will you ever realize the lifestyle you want for yourself.

The Butterfly Effect of Change

The “butterfly effect” is a theory (some call it a phenomenon) that a small change has a large effect elsewhere in the system. Some cultures trust so much in this theory that they believe the mere flutter of a butterfly’s wings can cause hurricanes on the other side of the world.

It’s true that when you make changes in your lifestyle, the effects are felt and experienced in other areas of your life. For example, you gain confidence when you lose weight or gain knowledge. This confidence propels you on to bigger things – a new job, meeting more people, traveling more, and putting you in a position of experiencing life to the fullest.

Think about it. Each time you begin a new change or project, you get excited about the future it can bring: new challenges, knowledge, and horizons that are limitless.

It’s a natural process of the mind to jump into the future and imagine what the change(s) will bring us – new or improved relationships, accomplishment, a new physique, or simply the satisfaction of reaching a long-term goal.

If you have the power to change, consider yourself fortunate. Many people don’t have the means or the desire to make changes in their lives which would make them healthier and happier. If you do, you’re one of a very few compared to most of the world.

The butterfly effect that could happen with the positive changes you decide to make can also affect those around you. Your family, friends, and others you come in contact with may be impacted by your success in making life-changing alterations.

They’ll see and feel the difference and it may serve to help them make changes in their own lives. Never take the changes you’ve made for granted. Personal growth is important to us as individuals, but also important to those we love and who love us back.

Main Points of Chapter 3: How to Embrace New Beginnings

Chapter 3: How to Embrace New Beginnings helps you to understand that those changes which bring you fulfillment and happiness may also bring changes that catch you by surprise. Learning how to embrace these positive changes without second-guessing yourself is the first step to lasting change and future successes. Some main points included in Chapter 3 include:

You may find that friends and family are hesitant or skeptical about the changes you’ve made.
Don’t doubt yourself. Fear of change makes it difficult to hold on to the changes you’ve made and to make even more positive changes.
Look at change as an opportunity to take the initiative to explore and learn.
Be patient with the new beginnings in your life. It may take longer than you thought to reach the success point you desire.
Excitement will spur you on to even more positive changes in your life.
Surround yourself with people who are supportive of your new changes.
Focus on a positive outcome even when things seem to be going wrong or taking longer than you planned.
Ask others for advice –especially those who have gone through similar changes in their lives.
The “butterfly effect” phenomenon can help you experience huge changes in other areas of your life when you only make a small change beginning with yourself.
If you can make positive changes in your life, consider yourself fortunate. Many people don’t have the same opportunities.
Your changes can have an impact on others who are trying to change for the better and inspire them to succeed.

Next month, we wrap up this series with Enjoy Your New Beginnings.

Don’t forget to share with me what you discovered during this month and let me know if I may share it within this newsletter next month.