Change is challenging. It impacts on people and they resist. But sometimes they resist experiencing the feelings that accompany change. Yet accepting and appreciating how you feel in changing situations can help. Here's how...

How you feel is OK. Whoever is going through any change experience would feel the way you do, whether it is angry, sad, frustrated etc. - all the emotions are acceptable and understandable. It is OK in the moment to feel the way you do.

Change creates big shifts in emotions. Big shifts. Acknowledging these shifts is a valuable part of the experience, because it will enrich you over time and you will come through more strongly for your new future.

These ten reasons go some way to show why it's OK to feel how you feel:-

1) It Broadens You

By going with a whole range of feelings and emotions, you become a broader person - one with many more experiences. This can be challenging as you go through it, but it will give you talents and skills that will be useful later.

2) You Get Stronger

Passing through the more challenging feelings is tough, but as you get through them, you become more capable of handling not just those bad days, but also skilled at developing strategies to cope.

3) It Authenticates You as a Person

Acknowledging the feelings you have and accepting them as OK are very validating for who you are. Much the opposite of holding in and trying to ignore what you are feeling.

4) It Shows Others It's OK too

As you show your feelings, others recognise them and know that it is OK to feel that way too. In a work experience or life in general, big changes come to more than one person often. Groups feel the same way - by sharing your personal experience, you will encourage others to as well.

5) Offers of Help Come

If you show that you are OK with the feelings you have and express this outwardly, others will show up to help you; to listen; to support and to co-create solutions and positive outcomes. Just discussing how you are feeling with others is a marvellous healer, Accepting help from others is a magical way to build relationships too.

6) You Let it Out

Letting out how you feel delivers relief. The act of shouting it (really!) helps. You will find solace in expressing yourself from the rooftops and remember that it's OK to be like this! It's part of feeling the real feelings, which helps you feel heard.

7) You are Learning

As you understand your own emotions, you are learning about your own capacity to cope and manage. This is a valuable resource to acknowledge. The learning you get from one challenging experience will enable you to generate a personal stategy for yourself (and others) for the future.

8) As You Change You Open to Options

Once you go down the dismal hump of disappointment and appreciate why you are going down and down, you start to realise that you have within you the choice of new possibilities. You can start to see that you have the power to choose how you feel and that changing environments have no right to make you feel badly if you choose not to. So you see the potential for the future.

9) Accepting is Easier

And hey, if you get used to the idea that whatever you cannot personally control is going to happen anyway, acceptance becomes much more bearable. Accept that you can control only 100% of how you feel and 0% of what others are in control of and you are getting there. The earlier in a change cycle you choose to do this the easier it will become for you.

10) You Can Help Others

And what a powerful support you can become., Realising that feeling how you feel is OK and there is a light at the end of every tunnel, is such a support to others. Your experience and the value you derived from it can be such a resource to others, who may be less enlightened. So share.

Feeling OK whenever change is imposed on you can, to the uninitiated, be very challenging and that in itself is OK - you can't be expected to be perfect at stuff - this is real life! But grasping change and deciding your own feelings is so much more powerful - and will uplift you, and your future, positively.

Martin Haworth

Thanks for taking a look at me! I work with people to help them realise their potential and make the most of their life. I also help managers to get the very best from their people, to make their businesses, teams, departments, whatever, to be successful.

Usually this is through my 'Coaching Managers to Coach' workshops, delivered worldwide, which includes experiential and hot-seat coaching for all participants - a great, fun learning experience. Click the big green link panel on any of the website pages!

There are over 1000 hints and tips, and that doesn't include the blog, which is updated pretty well daily, if not more often!

With a background in team management of groups from 6-300 and a great ICF coaching accreditation, I reckon I'm almost unique in my experience and training to make this work for you.

So take a look, checkout my other articles and maybe even set the blog page as a favourite:-) And, you know, if you want to get in touch, give me a call. I'll talk about almost anything, but I love helping people make the best of their workplace. Or e-mail me through the contact page on the site.

Ooops, I nearly forgot, I do manager soft-skills analysis with a programme called 'Intercept' and if you just want some one-to-one business coaching, I do that too. There's also a button on the navigation bar on the website pages for that too.

Fees, well, let me see, can I say that we can work something out? That's the way I work.

Thanks for happening by!

Martin