What to do when the context changes and you don't want to change with it?
Have you read the book "Who took my cheese?" from Spencer Johnson? This week, I had to speak to two different people to whom I recommended this book. Coincidence? I couldn't stop writing about it.
If you have not read it, this book tells a funny story of a character who is a little mouse and who, without mediating any type of error or desire on his part, his cheese is moved from one place to another, forcing him to have to make changes in your life and move to another place to feed. The interesting thing is that while he is forced to do this, he reflects all the time thinking about how good he was before and how painful it is that he had to change.
The author handles the metaphor very well and, despite the fact that this book is already 15 years old, this week was more current than ever. His teaching ?: How to adapt to a constantly changing world. Especially when we didn't feel like changing!
Has it happened to you? You have your armed life, your defined professional goal, a projected successful career. You work hard, but you like what you do. You do it well, you have talent. And you share a very good working environment with your colleagues and bosses. What more could you want?
Ah that's a shame, but there is a very very difficult variable to control: the market. The villain in your life story (if you've ever been through this) doesn't care about your plan, doesn't care about how well you do what you do or how much you enjoy it. The market changes and everything changes for those who are actors there. Well, sometimes it also changes for the better! What happens is that at that moment you hardly complain and make a history of this. But… if your situation changes for the worse, there begins your sorrow.
The reflection that I want to leave you today is that when a variable that you do not control (it may be the market but there are many more that are sure to also affect you) has a negative effect on your life plan, career, the sooner you accept it, you mourn and you do things again to regain control of your life or career, the better your outcome in this story. It is the difference between "the context changed, so I retreated and joined forces to move to another place where I started again with my enthusiasm and achieved success" and "I still do not know why this happened and it was the end of my career". What a difference, isn't it?
You can't keep fighting the same wall. Look for options, alternatives to what you did. If the context changes, you can also change and get going again. And this can be a new challenge if you can get excited about it.
Do you feel identified with this? Leave the crying and the complaint, and open your suitcase where you keep all your talents, abilities and capacities, and find what tool you can use today to change, withdraw, redefine your new professional objective and regain control by correctly focusing your efforts, resources and energy.
