Do you have competing realities living inside your head?  On the one hand, you have complete confidence that everything is going to work out while, in the background, a tape of doom and gloom is running.

Welcome to my world.

I’m usually holding the possibility of two “realities” in my mind.  The first is of the “happily ever after” variety, the second is “my world is coming to an end.”  What’s true about both of these “realities” is that neither has happened—I made them up!

I think everyone has competing scenarios. It’s likely a survival mechanism passed down from our ancestors. Be too optimistic, you’re liable to let your guard down and get eaten by a hungry lion.  Be too pessimistic and you won’t come out of the cave at all. Two extremes, both potentially deadly.

What’s interesting about this survival mechanism is that the quality of your life is determined by the amount of attention you give to each scenario.

When I was in the throes of my clinical depression, the ratio of my pessimism versus optimism hovered around 80/20. (By the way, if you’d like to figure out where you stand, check out the free questionnaires on http://www.AuthenticHappiness.com).

Today, I would say I’m 85% optimistic, 15% pessimistic.

This is why I love the question, “Is everything okay right this minute?”  It gives us great perspective.  An important teaching that helped pull me out of my depression is that living in the past is ridiculous because it’s over and done and dreading the future is equally ridiculous because we make ourselves sick over something that likely will never happen.  If you choose to “future trip,” (making up a story of what will happen in the future) why not make up a story of the “happily ever after” variety?  After all, they are just stories and you are the author of every one of them!

My friend Sandy obsesses about what her financial situation will be when she is old.  I ask her, “Is everything okay right now?” and the answer is a resounding, “Yes!”  The mortgage is paid, she has business coming in, there is plenty of food and even some money left over for fun.  But all of it is ruined by the pessimistic view she holds of her future, even though she is taking action about it—putting money away and planning for retirement.

Am I advocating for turning a blind eye toward important issues?  Not at all. I think we should plan for both our immediate and distant futures. Action cancels fear every time and planning is an action—worrying is not.

Being pessimistic serves a very useful function. It alerts us to the need for protective strategies and motivates us to be proactive.  But when pessimism turns to worry, it has outlived its usefulness. At that point it changes from being an advantage and becomes, instead, a detriment.

Worry is a detriment to your physical health, emotional well-being and peace of mind.  It is not simply a bad habit; it can seriously hurt you if you don’t develop some strategies to counteract it. In my case, it turned into a clinical depression that lasted for three decades.

I am living proof that it’s possible to replace the habit of worry.  I say replace because you cannot actually break a habit.  Instead, you replace it with new, habitual behavior.

So what is worry?  It is a pattern of obsessively thinking about worse case scenarios.  Before I offer some alternatives, stop for a moment and ask yourself, “What could I do instead of worrying? What might be some behaviors that would be more useful?”  Write down your answers.  I’d rather have you come up with alternatives than use my strategies because, if the idea comes from you, you’re much more likely to put it into action.

Here’s a clue.  If worrying is what you DON”T want to do, what is it you WANT to do instead?

I’d love to hear some of your ideas.  Email them to me: Silver@SilverSpeaks.com and I will post them.  If you’re stuck, and that often happens when you’re in the throes of a worry cycle, email me anyhow and I’ll send some suggestions, things that have worked for me.

Consider for a moment what life would be like if you could significantly reduce the amount of time you spend worrying.  The benefits for me have been many:

- I sleep peacefully through most nights (for many years, obsessive worrying kept me awake into the wee hours);
- Nightmares, once frequent, are now rare (think about it. If you are in the habit of worrying all day, how would your subconscious know that it’s time to turn it off when you sleep?)
- I feel more in control.  Worry is focusing on something about which you feel you have no control. Since you get more of what you focus on, worrying ensures that you will notice even more things you can’t control.

You will always live with competing realities. The trick is to stack the decks so that “happily live ever after” is always miles ahead of “doom and gloom.” It’s a competition—ONE of them has to win! Your choice.

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Have you ever noticed that your Inner Guide never rests?  Mine has been relentless for two days now, letting me know that I’m on the wrong track.  Does it speak to me in words? No, thank goodness.  If that were the case, I’d be like one of those pictures you see in Internet ads, my hair standing on end, looking like I’ve been electro-shocked.

No, my Inner Guide communicates with me through my emotions. So does yours. (Not through my emotions—that would be weird—but through your own.

I’ve been down.  Nothing really serious but to quote my four-year-old friend Zoe, “yucky”. Enough to capture my attention. I believe, without question, that you get more of what you focus on. I know that if I indulge these negative feelings for very long, the results will not be pretty.

So how do I “feel my feelings” (which psychologists tell us is healthy and necessary) without wallowing?  The answer lies in asking the right question:  what are your feelings trying to tell you?  I asked that question after meditating this morning and this is the answer I received:

You are working far too hard at figuring things out.  Just relax and enjoy the ride.  You have already attracted abundance into your life.  Now seek that which makes you happy.

Wow!  My Inner Guide is not only wise but also very smart. Yours is, too.

My feeling down is certainly an “appropriate” response to what’s going on.  It had to do with two things:

First, my partner Bill’s serious illness, a scary reality we live with every day.  Neither of us dwells on it much and we both believe it to be a temporary setback.  And yet, when I saw a TV show where someone died, I fell apart.  Normally, I choose to avoid shows that might make me feel bad but this was a rerun of Ally McBeal, a comedy—who knew it would get so darned serious?

Second, I “broke up” with a longtime friend I love very much. Why?  Because of various changes over the last decade, I believe the friendship is no longer serving us. In fact, it felt to me like it was doing us damage. In the vernacular of Dancing with Change, I heard the refrain of the new song and decided to sit this one out.

She and I have been trying for years to make it work and there comes a time for some friends to part, much like couples do when things aren’t working out. We were stepping on each other’s toes in a number of very painful ways. Opting to sit this one out causes an ache within me but I believe that, in the long run, we are both better off.

Why do we cling to things that don’t make us happy, that actually make us unhappy?  Relationships, jobs, that frying pan with the missing handle…the list goes on and on.  We have been trained to believe that anything worth achieving must be a struggle.  Do we ever question that wisdom?  Here is a quote I love from author Stuart Wilde: Effort is a natural part of our physical state, but struggle is effort laced with emotion, and that is unnatural and unholy.

We seem to be addicted to struggle. If you look at the number of self-help books and courses that sell every day it is evident that many of us think there is an “answer” out there. If we just find it, then everything will fall into place.

Well, it’s true. There IS an answer. What we fail to realize is that we find it on a regular basis. We apply it, things fall into place and we’re happy. However, in a very short period of time, we get used to our new circumstances and then we want more. We go looking for a new answer and the cycle starts all over.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting more. It is how we grow. But wanting more doesn’t prevent us from enjoying what we have. Only we have the power to do that.

I want Bill not to have cancer. But he does. And it is ridiculous for me to spend any amount of time worrying about what might happen in the future.  Today he is here, feeling reasonably well and being as active as can be. On a daily basis, we make a concentrated effort to enjoy what we have—a strong and abiding love for each other.

Bill & me, enjoying life

I want more from my friendship and, for whatever reason, it wasn’t happening. I take full responsibility for that. I could spend more years struggling to fix it, to somehow make it work but I choose not to do that. There are those who might consider me a poor friend but I believe I would be a worse one by trying to make it work. I would continue to hurt her and myself. Is that what friendship is supposed to be?

So here I am once again trying to figure things out when the message I received was to relax and enjoy the ride.

The Law of Attraction says that you get more of what you focus on. When I choose to focus on how wonderful life is right now and how grateful I am for what I have, my happiness is ensured, no matter the circumstances.

Life continually lays change at our feet, some good, some we’d rather not have. We wouldn’t want it any other way—the ever-changing circumstances are what make life interesting. The more we can learn to dance with them, the less “yucky” time we will have.

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The steps of learning to Dance with Change:

One: Accept that which cannot be changed.

Two: Choose—will you dance or sit this one out?

Three: Determine how much of this new dance you already know.

Four: Determine your role—Lead or Follower?

Five: Focus on learning the new dance.

Six: Start with the frame—it’s everything.

Seven: If you step on anyone’s toes, apologize and keep dancing.

Eight: Find partners who are better at the dance than you and learn from them.

Nine: Once you’ve mastered the steps—practice, practice, practice!

Step Ten: Once you’ve mastered the dance, make it yours!

Step Eleven: Relax and enjoy!!

Once you’ve gone through all the steps, you have earned the right to have fun. Learning anything new can be a struggle.  Getting to the point where you have mastered it is where the fun begins.

No matter what you’ve learned—a new process, computer program, a better style of communication or a way to shave 10 minutes off your daily commute—if you don’t take time to enjoy it, what was the point?

This is where so many of us shortchange ourselves.  If you’re not experiencing a sense of satisfaction at work or at home, it is likely because you are not taking the time to relax and enjoy what you’ve accomplished.

We are a society of “What’s next?” and, although that’s certainly one reason we’ve accomplished so much, it’s also a big contributor to our growing sense of dissatisfaction.  Without taking time to enjoy the fruits of our labor, we live in a world of what’s not done instead of what is and that can only lead to frustration and a foreboding sense that somehow we are “not enough.”

What change have you recently adapted to that is worth celebrating?  Here are some examples to stimulate your party gene:

-  At work or at home did you have a day all planned out only to have it turned upside down by circumstances?  Did you STILL manage to accomplish good things? Then you adapted to a change. Celebrate!

-  Did you go into work with an expectation of a routine, fairly easy day only to have the phones ringing off the hook with customer demands? If you were able to get things accomplished, then you adapted to a change.  Celebrate! -  Did your commute present unexpected challenges?  If you arrived at your destination, even if late, you adapted to a change. Celebrate!

-  Have you, like so many of us, opened up an Internet program only to find the developers have made some more “improvements” (and without consulting you, no less!)?  If you’re still able to successfully use this program, then you adapted to a change. Celebrate!

We adapt to change every day. We are skilled at it.  Whether it’s a change in what our loved ones need or want from us, priorities at work, traffic detours on the way to work or something as simple as opening the refrigerator to discover you’ve run out of eggs, you are adapting as you go.  When you are able to recognize your own talent for adaptation, it becomes much easier to roll with the big changes that take place.   You become someone who responds smoothly to change instead of reacting.

Relax and enjoy! There are few emotions that feel better than satisfaction.  Each time you bask in your accomplishments, no matter their scope, you take one more step toward evolving into a master of change.

Relax and enjoy! Share your victories with others.  I had a wonderful talk with my dear friend Alice last night who lost her daughter to cancer a few years ago.  Our conversation was laced with her sharing some of the small victories she has managed despite her grief. For example, her daughter had always been the one who made a big deal out Alice’s birthday.  Knowing this, Alice made her own arrangements this year to be surrounded by people who know and love her best.  She was still saddened by the absence of her daughter but she adapted by making sure she was encircled with love.

Adapting isn’t always easy. Many changes are ones you would never have asked for if you had a vote. But, like Alice, you can take even the worst of circumstances and feel proud of how you are adapting.

You are the one in charge of how change impacts you. Allow me to suggest, one more time—when you have figured out how to get on the other side of a change—relax and enjoy!

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Step Ten: Once you’ve mastered the dance, make it yours! The fundamentals of every dance do not change.  That being the case how is it that some dancers can make it look like they’re inventing a dance on the spot?  Those who are able to do that have mastered the fundamentals and, because of that mastery are able to innovate and make the dance their own.

This is the step that is generally fought tooth and nail in organizations.  A good deal of lip service is given to the idea that we want employees to be innovative, to find new and better ways to do things.  However, without a structure to support this decree, employees who have the courage to try are often maligned or, at the very least, discouraged from stepping outside the pre-existing boundaries of their jobs.

Some of these employees are what I call Changepreneurs.

Changepreneur™– someone who identifies opportunities within change, applies the necessary action to advance his/her ideas and assumes accountability for the inherent risks and outcome.

If you have Changepreneurs within your organization who are not nurtured, you will lose them. And, when they walk out your door the ideas that could take your organization to the next level leave with them. These are the employees who either join a competitor who will listen or they start their own companies.

Changepreneurs are never satisfied with the status quo.  When something changes, not only are they the first to see the inherent opportunities, they are also the ones who act quickly and assume accountability for results. This is the kind of mindset every organization claims to want in their employees and yet, when those employees show up in the ranks, they are usually seen as threats.  Phrases like, “Not a team player,” or “Doesn’t follow procedures,” are often seen in their employee evaluations.

Unlike Status-Quo employees, Changepreneurs thrive on change. They get bored with routine. The phrase, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” merely confuses them.  They believe, “If it’s working well, why not make it even better?”

I am not saying that Status-Quo employees do not master the dance—they do!  They master it so well that they don’t want to change one piece of it.  When a twist on an established step is introduced, it disrupts their flow and they find the change unsettling and quickly reject it.

If you are a Status-Quo contributor, do not despair.  There is great need for you in every organization. The Changepreneurs are the ones who shake things up with the end goal of improvement. They are builders, not maintainers like the Status-Quo employees.  Once the Changepreneurs introduce change and generate forward momentum, they usually move on to the next thing, leaving the Status-Quo employees behind to clean things up and calm the waters.  Even though you Status-Quo employees will complain about this, you wouldn’t have it any other way.  There is nothing you enjoy more than creating order out of chaos.

Whether you are a Changepreneur or a Status-Quo employee (or somewhere in between) it is important for you to learn to dance with change because things aren’t going to slow down any time soon. We learn a new dance, master it and before we can enjoy our time on the dance floor, the music has changed and we’re obliged to learn a newer dance.  The more quickly we can adapt, the easier and more productive our lives will be.

Step Ten comes as naturally to Changepreneurs as does breathing.  For Status-Quo employees, it is a step that needs to be taken deliberately because you do not have a natural inclination to improvise. You are generally rule-followers and, in order to make a dance uniquely yours, you will have to step outside of the rules.

Every dancer has a style and you are no different. However, before you can put your unique mark on anything, you must first master the basics.  Until you’ve done that, you will find little interest from others in your ideas for how to improve something you’ve not yet mastered yourself.

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The steps of learning to dance with change:

One: Accept that which cannot be changed.

Two: Choose—will you dance or sit this one out?

Three: Determine how much of this new dance you already know.

Four: Determine your role—Lead or Follower?

Five: Focus on learning the new dance.

Six: Start with the frame—it’s everything.

Seven: If you step on your partner’s toes, apologize and keep dancing.

Eight: Find partners who are better at the dance than you.

Step Nine: Once you’ve mastered the steps—practice, practice, practice.

Learning anything new, whether it’s a dance, a new computer system or how to work with a new boss can be awkward at first.  Think about the first time you tried to use a computer mouse.  I couldn’t keep track of where the pointer was on my screen!  I didn’t think I’d ever be able to control it and yet today I use it well without even having to think about what I’m doing.

In dance they call it muscle memory and it comes with practice—lots and lots of practice. In learning anything new, you cannot escape memorization. Once you’ve memorized the steps and you practice repeatedly, you cannot help but get better at whatever you are trying to learn.

We see examples of this every week on the show Dancing With the Stars. At the beginning of the weeks-long process, we look at some of the contestants and wonder how they will keep from embarrassing themselves once they perform. In rehearsals they trip, they fall, they cry and they get angry.  Sound familiar?  Don’t we all do some version of that when we are learning something new? Masters are those individuals who continue to get up, dust themselves off and try again.  The before-and-after videos of the contestants are often amazing. It’s hard to believe we’re watching the same awkward dancers we saw at the beginning when, at the end, they dance so beautifully on stage.

I make a lot of speeches. For years I resisted the concept of practice. In my arrogance, I convinced myself that I was so good speaking “off the cuff” that I didn’t need to rehearse.  Don’t get me wrong, I always prepared but I refused to practice, thinking that doing so would make my speeches seem stiff and too formal.

How wrong I was!  There are stories I tell in my presentations that I have been telling for years.  The more I repeat them, the better they are. I was, in effect, practicing in front of live audiences. I’ve stopped doing that. Today I spend hours alone practicing my talks. The more I practice in front of a mirror, the better they sound when I finally get up on that stage. And because I practice, my speeches sound relaxed and friendly, not stiff and formal, as I’d feared.

Think of some of the things you do well today as a result of hours of practice:

• Walking
• Driving a car
• Writing on a piece of paper
• Reading
• Keyboarding
• Playing a sport
• Singing or playing an instrument
• Using all the capabilities of your cell phone

At first you were terrible. With practice you got better! Why is it, then, that we expect immediate expertise when adapting to a change?

When faced with learning something new, ask yourself, “What would I need to practice in order to get good at this?” Some things will be obvious, others not.  For example, when dealing with a difficult co-worker or boss, what you may need to practice is responding to situations versus reacting. This involves proactively imagining a situation in which the other person does something that is certain to “set you off.” You then visualize how you will respond and you practice that response over and over until you know it like you know how to breathe. The next time that person does something that would normally aggravate you, you will then be able to respond calmly, just as you practiced. The alternative?—Skip the practice and do what you normally do—blurt out the first thing that pops into your head or say nothing and spend a sleepless night staring at the ceiling thinking, “I should have said this or I should have said that.”

Practice is the key to mastery and you have already mastered many things. Why stop there?  Why not apply the same learning process that enables you to walk, use a computer and talk on the phone to the new challenges you face? In this way you will be practicing Dancing with Change!

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The steps of learning to dance with change:

One: Accept that which cannot be changed.

Two: Choose—will you dance or sit this one out?

Three: Determine how much of this new dance you already know.

Four: Determine your role—Lead or Follower?

Five: Focus on learning the new dance.

Six: Start with the frame—it’s everything.

Seven: If you step on your partner’s toes, apologize and keep dancing.

Eight: Find partners who are better at the dance than you.

Master motivator Tony Robbins puts it this way, “If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you’ll achieve the same results.”  In other words, true to the principles of the Law of Attraction, you get more of what you focus on.

Too often we focus on looking good or on being better than others.  In order to avoid feelings of vulnerability, we choose to interact only with those whose skills are inferior to ours.  It’s easy to be the best in a sea of mediocrity.

As in any group, the dance community is comprised both of people who are committed to continual improvement and those who are content with “good enough.” There’s nothing wrong with the latter; it doesn’t, however, allow you to routinely exercise the “muscle” required to easily adapt to change.

“Good enough” is fine if you plan to dance with the same partner every time and you both agree to stay at that level.  On the other hand, if you get into a situation where you are dancing with a different partner who is at a higher level, it could be hard for you to adapt to his/her style because you’ve been at “good enough” for so long.  In a work situation, what this looks like is a team where some are pulling more of the weight than others and problems arise.

The best dancers, when they are trying to learn a new dance or get better at one they already know, look for someone who is extremely good at it and model what s/he does.  Because they are dedicated to the goal of getting better, they willingly put themselves into a situation of vulnerability where they are not the best.

Surrounding yourself with those who have mastered what you are trying to achieve will ensure that you improve faster. As a bonus you will be exposed to new techniques and subtle nuances that are never seen in “good enough”.

Whenever you are faced with a change you can not or choose not to walk away from, learning what’s required to do this “new dance” is unavoidable.  You can either learn everything the hard way (kicking and screaming) or be more like those dancers who are dedicated to getting better by volunteering to learn.  The volunteers have learned the secret Tony Robbins talks about—they find someone to model.

A few years ago I was faced with a major change—arthritis in my left knee caused by surgery 30 years prior.  It was so painful that when I turned over in my sleep at night I would cry out. Of course, being a bit of a “catastrophizer,” I envisioned all sorts of horrible outcomes and even began proactively mourning the things I was “sure” I’d never be able to do again (including dance).

Then I looked for potential solutions.  I talked to my chiropractor.  He told me what athletes do when they run into knee problems.  At his urging, I began to do the same exercises to strengthen the muscles supporting my knee.  Then I found Tami Lacey—an amazing trainer who modeled for me the exercises I could do to get really strong.  (And then she stood over me to make sure I actually did them!)

Within two years I was able to hike to 8,000 feet in the Italian Alps and finish the 39-mile Avon Two-Day Walk for Breast Cancer.  Imagine how different the results would have been if I had decided to model those who solved this same problem through pain medication or surgery.  (Please—no emails! I understand that some situations are so bad that there are no other choices—luckily that wasn’t the case for me!)

I never needed to meet those “dance partners” who were better at the dance of recovery from knee problems than I was. As you move through this fast-changing world you have available to you many incredible models to help you dance with change.  Find them. They are among your co-workers and friends, on the Internet, in your doctor’s office, in your schools and in your libraries.

We live in a remarkable time when Dancing With Change is not only possible, it can be quite easy—especially if you find and learn from partners who are better at the dance than you!

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