In a world that is constantly evolving and changing. Your ability to adapt can increase your chances of being successful in your career, relationships, health, and more.
Humans are an incredible bunch. We are one of the few species to cover every corner of the globe, while shaping our environment as much as we have. We've employed an interesting combination of skills and abilities to get where we are today.
We have faced a wide range varying environmental conditions, all the while surviving in all regions of the world. We live successfully in humid tropical forests, harsh deserts, arctic wastelands, and even densely populated cities with considerable amounts of pollution. We also are constantly responding in physiological ways to internal and external stresses such as bacterial and viral infections, air and water pollution, dietary imbalance, and overcrowding.
We have lost loved ones, seen war, been held captive, experienced horrible pain yet our ability to adapt as resilient and kind humans is unmatched.
But as adaptable as we are, we usually don't like change. In fact, just thinking about the possibility of change gives some people the chills; even full on anxiety. We are creatures of habit and feeling a sense of security is normal; when we are knocked off our feet, we take a dive into a foreign land.
In life, we will always experience change. Some within our control. While others are not.
Yet change is inevitable - constant; some horrible, some being the best thing that has even happen to us. But the positive changes can be just as hard to adapt to as the negative ones.
Let's say you're an individual who's built a relationship with someone you've known and lived with for years, but it's time to move on. What is life going to be without this person? How are you physically going to do it? And where do you go? What are the next steps? Just the idea of not having this person next to you seems so weird and foreign. Could there be life without this familiar comfort?
Or maybe it's where you work. You've been there for so long that who would even accept you anywhere else? Maybe you studied for years and you wouldn't want it to go to waste? And what would others say? Would you even fit in, especially at your age?! And how would you even go about not working somewhere where your settled role is fine, there's nothing wrong with where you are, but it's not the one.
I guess I could list a thousand 'what ifs', shoulda, woulda, couldas and we'd still be here listing them as we went down the list.
But adapting to the new and the forever changes is our super power, just by deciding to jump brings us closer to a more desirable outcome.
And the jump seems to always be the hardest part of the change because like I said, we have been adapting since the beginning of time.
Remember going to collage and thinking how long it'll take to get the diploma or how much you felt like an outsider? Now that seems like the shortest part of your life and where you met your best friends?
Or how weird is it that someone who was a stranger not that long ago is someone you are having children with?
Allowing yourself to actually taste the fruit of your labor comes from taking that first step of planting the seed. Knowing that you are worthy of that change, and despite the fear of anything and everything your anxiety is telling you, wanting something else for yourself is ok and wonderful; acceptable, allowed and encouraged.
Don't be afraid to ask for help, but have enough courage to plant that seed, and trust the ability that is imbedded in your DNA, is all the fuel you'll need to adapt to whatever it is that you want to pursue for your next chapter, because you are wildly capable and you will adapt.