Embrace change: A blessing in disguise

How major setbacks turn out to be life greatest lessons and are the seeds for future growth. How to embrace change.

One of my all time funniest lyrics is “Isn’t it ironic” by Alanis Morissette: “Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you”. Those lyrics remind me of the fact that nothing remains the same and life is all about change. You can either resist it of embrace it. Grieve over something lost or go with the flow and make the best of it. Or in the words of my favorite quote: “Get busy living, or get busy dying”.

In my life I experienced some major setbacks and changes. All of them turned out to be growth experiences:

As a 12 year old kid I lost my spleen because of a stupid accident while jumping over a fence. Luckily the spleen is an organ you can live without and this turned out to be the right excuse not to get drafted for the army at a later age.

At the age of 17 I found out I didn’t like the technical college I attended at all. In fact I hated it. During the same period I saw a TV show which promoted a new IT college that was just about to start. I immediately knew this was where I belonged and applied for the classes. Since then I never regretted this choice. It was the start of my IT career.

When I was 20 I lost my first job as the company I worked for went bankrupt. I remember I was devastated over it, never thinking I would find another job again. Of course this didn’t happened and after an, at that time stressful period of self pity and job hunting, things turned out to be for the better.

11 years later I lost interest in the job I was doing at that time. 11 years is a long time to work for the same company. Right at the time I made the decision to quit whatever the consequences, a new job offer came along which provided a bunch of new opportunities.

A couple of years ago I was involved in a long distance relationship. When I was over in Canada visiting my girlfriend, she dumped me in a pretty nasty way. I will not go into the dirty details, but all I can say it was a real classic story ready to feature in a Hollywood movie. Looking back at the whole experience I can say this was one of the major teachings in my life, and the start of something completely new. I am even thankful to her as now, after more than 3 years have passed, wasn’t it for this experience I wouldn’t have met my current wife. We now have the most gorgeous and joyful daughter one can imagine.

Over the years I grew more confident not fearing change as much as I did. I started to appreciate it, embrace it, and now expect it to happen as a next opportunity to grow.

The current economic situation is gloomy. Many people are losing their job; I may be one of them due to huge budget cuts in the company I work for. But maybe this is the opportunity I have, unconscious, been waiting for and is this a chance to make another change for the better: A blessing in disguise: To prioritize on my most important passion and finally make the steps that would have frightened me in the past. I now have the chance to achieve a better work-life balance, further develop my facilitator and coaching skills, find another cool job, maybe start my own Life Coaching practice, or become a professional blogger.

Embrace change: A Blessing In Disguise, “Life is like a box of chocolates… you never know what you’re gonna get.”