A change-o-phobic person is terrified of change. Hopefully you’re not one of them – people who stubbornly cling to the “tried and true” old ways of doing things, even when they’re struggling. Their answer is to work harder.
Ugh. No fun! And probably not very productive, either. Just more of the same (Einstein’s definition of insanity).
You may fear change for good reasons: rejection, failure, high cost, etc. But if things are not going as well in your business as you want, you’ll have to embrace change.
Here’s how to make change seem more appealing:
1. What’s your vision? And what’s your plan for making it happen? If you have a goal, and a well-designed plan to get there, you won’t be focused on “change” – you’ll be focused on action! Even if the action steps take you far, far outside your comfort zone, you’ll be so busy doing that you’ll forget all about the fact that you’re changing how you do things.
2. Play the “what if” game but instead of “what if it goes wrong?” reprogram yourself to think in terms of “what if it goes right?” The amount of mental effort is exactly the same, isn’t it? You can worry yourself into paralysis or you can use your imagination to create awesome, exciting scenarios that fire you up about making it happen.
3. Be flexible. Just because you adopt a new way of doing things does not necessarily mean you are stuck with that approach. Be flexible. Be willing to experiment. For example, let’s say you are having trouble with your advertising campaign. If your email blasts are ending up in everybody’s spam folder, how about hiring a cartoonist to do a fun, entertaining sales campaign that you can launch on Facebook? Something that pokes a bit of fun at you, entertains your audience, doesn’t feel like spam and at the same time, raises awareness of your business? And if that approach doesn’t work… how about a YouTube video? Don’t stick to the old ways that everyone says are “THE” ways to market your business.
Change can be hard, but mostly it’s hard only if you decide it will be hard. After all, you are physically and mentally changing every single day. Just because you don’t notice the changes doesn’t mean they aren’t occurring! They are. So learn to see changes in the way you do things in relation to the big picture. How difficult will this particular change seem five years or ten years from now? Will you look back at your terrified self and laugh at how silly you were to be so afraid. I’m willing to bet you will!
Inspired by a blog on http://www.productivity501.com/