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Key points
- It is anxiety-provoking to make a big life change due to the unknown of how the future will be.
- A person has the power to control how much they let various uncomfortable feelings get in their way.
- One doesn't need to know how everything will play out in order to initiate a change.
- It is important to connect with one's values to determine what changes are best.
The thought of initiating a big life change is anxiety-provoking. By making a major change, you are not only altering the direction you’re going in but also paving a new road for that journey. It’s hard to think about doing something you know nothing about. That unknown can feel threatening to your entire being, and anxiety comes up to signal this possible danger ahead, be it rational or not.
While anxiety’s intention is to keep you safe, the false alarms of danger that anxiety sounds off can get in your way. Anxiety can be really powerful, given the ways it arises in the body and the noise it creates in the mind. However, you are ultimately the one in control of how powerful it becomes.
When you listen to every word anxiety tells you, you are more likely to engage in avoidance, which further pushes off the work that’s necessary to make your life better. Though getting through a big life change can sometimes take a long time, that process takes a lot longer when you don’t start it. Below are three notions that might be giving you pause to take that first step and how to handle them:
1. You don’t want to feel the discomfort of difficult emotions.
Be it sadness, stress, frustration, confusion, grief, and so on, you experience many painful and uncomfortable emotions throughout life. These difficult feelings arise enough as a result of experiences that occur outside of your control, so it makes sense that you wouldn’t want to deliberately put yourself through more of them. However, it is an unfair, hard truth that staying stagnant and making changes both possess elements of discomfort. While being stagnant means you don’t experience the emotions that accompany a big life change, you’re still left with how you feel about not living the life you desire.
As you hit each uncomfortable wave of initiating and navigating a major life transition, it is important to accept them. Acceptance doesn’t mean you have to like, want, or be happy with the feeling; it just means you allow it to be there and pass through you. Acceptance ends the war that resistance creates in your mind. This uncomfortable wave is temporary, and the only way you’ll get to a long-term, more peaceful shore is if you ride it. You can listen to a calming song, watch a funny video clip, go for a walk, or engage in any other coping strategy that helps to carry you over the emotional wave. This will continue to move you forward.
2. You don’t have confirmation that life will be better.
It is unsettling not to know what comes next. Your brain has a negativity bias, meaning it pays more attention to negative information and possible outcomes than positive ones, even if the likelihood of either outcome occurring is equal. As a result, your brain may tell you all the things that could go wrong during a big life transition, which is very deterring. It would be amazing if you had a crystal ball you could look into every time you want to make a change so that you know for sure what awaits you on the other side. And yet, no such thing exists.
If you’re reading this, you have overcome every change you’ve gone through thus far. They may have been hard and included some negative experiences along the way, and you still got through them. That resilience is something to ground yourself in.
Though the idea of the unknown is scary, that doesn’t mean every unknown experience will actually be bad. You have control over how you view and navigate the unknown. Instead of focusing on needing to know how everything will play out, use the current information at hand that you do know to help you make the change. If you know that you’re unhappy in a particular relationship, job, or city, that is valuable information. If you allow yourself to envision “better,” you can achieve it. “Better” is significant even if it doesn’t mean “amazing.”
3. You don’t want to disappoint other people.
The people in your life matter, and you want them to be proud of you. It doesn’t feel good when these people aren’t aligned with, don’t understand, or feel let down by the choices you make. In an effort to ensure that you are supported, you might make decisions based on what they think is best for you, even if it’s not what you truly envision for your own happiness. Additionally, you have access to so many platforms of online creators whom you might look up to, giving you and their followers advice, and you feel influenced to follow in their footsteps.
Ultimately, you have to make the choices that will serve you. Everyone’s opinions and approaches come from each person’s unique experiences, and those do not represent the specific context of your life. You’re the only one living your life, and you deserve to feel fulfilled by it.
To make the changes that are right for you, try connecting with your values. While your goals serve as the destinations you’re trying to reach, your values are the directions you’re traveling in. Values help you determine what kind of person you want to be to yourself and others and what is important to give your time and energy to. A few examples of values are curiosity, authenticity, honesty, adventure, and friendship. Acting in accordance with your values is an ongoing journey, and the specific things you do by acting in line with them can evolve throughout your life.
Conclusion
There are valid reasons why you might be hesitating to initiate a big life change. There are uncomfortable emotions such as anxiety, fear, and disappointment that communicate the possible negative outcomes. However, these feelings are not facts. The more weight you put on them, the more you hinder yourself from living the life you not only want but also deserve and may need.
Starting the process of change doesn’t mean you need to see your desired results right away; it just means you are holding onto your power and using it to move your life in your desired direction. Make your choices based on what you want and hope to feel on the other side of the journey as opposed to how you feel before it. You can start while anxious.
