Conquering Change and the Valley of Despair

Have you ever set your sights on a new goal, like boosting your workout game to 5 days a week, only to find yourself falling off the wagon by day 4? What about that new blog you were going to start that has a few posts from last year with double that amount of half-finished, unpublished drafts on your computer?

Change is hard.

Whether it’s a change in our behavior, environment, or goals, making a change that lasts is much easier said than done. No matter how much better your life could be on the other side, change without preparation and persistence is stagnation. Even knowing this, we still struggle to find success in our life’s transformations.

As puzzling as it may seem, this is all part of human nature and how we respond to change. All of us go through what’s called the “Emotional Cycle of Change.” We naturally progress through a series of stages in implementing or experiencing any transformation, many times requiring us to rewind and start again. The image below illustrates each of the points along this cycle.

It all starts with initial excitement and uninformed optimism as we begin our journey. Whether it’s a change you have chosen for yourself or something out of your control, it’s not uncommon for the shiny newness of mixing things up to blind you from what’s on the horizon.

Our eagerness carries us through for a while until, like that first cup of coffee’s effects at 10 a.m., the energy begins to fade. We hit a couple of bumps and are beginning to see the long and challenging road ahead. Old habits start calling our names, and more time is spent being frustrated and complaining rather than doing the work that needs to be done.

As you could imagine, this is far from productive. Here is where the spiral takes full effect. You feel like you’re working hard but not getting results – in a word, ineffective. Then comes frustration, not only thinking about the initial challenges but about how little progress you’ve made. Drained and discouraged, you try to continue, increasingly interrupted by doubt and irritation. Eventually, the pattern of frustration stopping progress, and stopped progress, creating frustration, leads you to the point where you don’t see any way to succeed – the valley of despair.

While it sounds miserable, many of us have been caught in some form of this spiral. We understand the logic of how we got to this point, but when we’re caught in the thick of things, it’s tough to pull ourselves out and get back on track. This is especially true if no forethought was given to this very likely situation happening.

How can you reduce the negative impacts of change?

Be honest about your current state – You know where you want to go, but where are you today? It would be great if you didn’t have to do much work to make a change, but many times this is not the case. Assuming things are better than they may make the plan seem simpler but will only create more work and frustration for you on the backend.

Make a specific plan – While we can’t take the unpredictability of life away, we can do our best to prepare for any curveballs that come our way. Just to be clear, a plan is not only where you’d like to end up; it’s how you’ll get there. One of the best ways to do this is leveraging SMART goals for your change – get specific. Aligning a series of goals in a progression that makes sense will help provide you guidance when you’re in the thick of things and will be a great way to gauge whether you need to make adjustments.

Establish a realistic timeline – The keyword being ‘realistic’ in this point, you will need to do some self-reflection and analyze based on what you determined your current state to be. Set aside things you want to happen and look at the facts in front of you. You might have a busy work schedule, be working with someone who does things at a slower speed, or anticipate needing time to research. All things considered, and with a little extra cushion built-in, how long will it actually take you to do it right.

Define what your ‘valley of despair’ is – Being able to articulate your threshold for overwhelm and frustration is critical in helping you to avoid it. It’s as simple as creating a bullet point list of worst-case scenarios that would warrant sounding the alarms and then reflecting on how you would handle them, should they happen. If you can handle the stress, more power to you! If, on the other hand, stress if your kryptonite, put your strengths to use, and have safeguards in place earlier on in the change process.

Employ an accountability partner – For my fellow independent people out there, we often think we can just do it all ourselves (guilty). That may be true, but it’s usually not without some struggles that could have been avoided by having a helping hand. Talk to a friend, family member, mentor, or coworker you trust telling about your upcoming change. Share with them about the areas where you need some help, and ask if they would be willing to check in on you. It could be anything from making sure you’re not procrastinating by sharing your weekly tasks or checking in on your emotional state to steer you away from spiraling.

Set smaller goals along the way – Your ultimate goal is the focus, but breaking a significant change into smaller, more digestible milestones will keep you motivated, and will provide more opportunities to identify course corrections. If you are consistently not meeting the shorter-term goals, perhaps it’s time to revisit your initial plan before letting your morale and progress plummet.

Change is a challenging, unavoidable part of life. We may not always get to choose what it is or when it happens, but we can decide how we handle it. The next time you see a change on the horizon, try out a few of the practices above. You will inevitably experience the emotional curve of change. The key is minimizing the valley of despair and getting you to success and fulfillment quicker.

If these concepts are new to you or applying them seems overwhelming, let’s get in touch. We can discuss essential changes in your life, assess the impacts, and create a customized plan to guide you through them.

Kayla Sanborn

kayla@discoveryunlimitedcoaching.com