What is change?
Change is everything.
Everything is changing right now. Your school. Your hockey season. Your team. Your job. Our government. Technology. The seasons. Nature. Your mindset. Your body.
Change is inevitable. It happens without your input nor opinion. It comes and goes when it wants, how it wants.
Covid is dramatically changing our lives again. For the hockey season. For the holiday season. Things aren't the same.
But we must adapt...and overcome.
Not only is the world changing, but you're changing too. You're different today than you were yesterday, or a week ago, or a year ago, or ten. It's more obvious to see the change over longer spans of time. It's more obvious when you can see the changes physically, and between the ages of 10 and 18.
With all that is going on, it can be easy to get wrapped up in emotion amidst all the change around us. However, it's all ultimately outside our control.
Therefore, I've pulled together a 3-stage framework to adapting and overcoming within changing environments. I'm no expert in this field, but I've compiled these thoughts from many sources over the years. From Ted Talks, to books, to navigating change seminars. These ideas are not necessarily all my own (not to imply that other things I write about are, though I may be modify).
Anyway, my framework is as follows: we experience change in three proceeding stages.
Resistance
Acceptance
Capitalize or Crumble
First up, resistance.
When we first brush against change, we recoil. It's hard. It's uncomfortable. It's scary, facing the unknown of where this change will take us.
We like for things to stay the same, the way they've always been. And so we try to grip things tightly, hoping that it doesn't slip through our fingers.
Next we come (or not) to a place of acceptance.
This is where we audibly or inaudibly (to ourselves) come to the conclusion that change is outside our control. This is where we throw our hands up ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's here that we recognize the absurdity of trying to influence things that are out of our control. The weather. The lockdown. The paused hockey season. The tipped puck off your defense's butt that goes in. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Can't do anything about it. So accept it. What can you do when you can't do anything?
Don't do anything, and move on. Find something you can do.
Finally, we reach a stage of capitalization or crumbling.
Where you end up in this stage depends on your attitude during the acceptance stage.
Accept that things are out of your control? Yep. See things for what they are? Check. Now you can do everything in your power that is within your control.
You can't control the weather. Accepted. Prepare yourself with a jacket. Cool.
Understanding that you can't control the change itself, you find ways to capitalize on it. You start working hard to build skills that you can away from the rink. You build your mind while you can't be on the ice. You improve your attention to detail and discipline.
Crumbling comes when you don't accept the change that is outside your control. You (we) get frustrated, distraught, angry, and resentful that the change is happening, and it might not be the way you want it to go.
Maybe you throw a little temper tantrum on the inside. Maybe you procrastinate. Maybe you decide that "no matter what I do, things never work out for ME!" Maybe you slam your stick on the ice or the crossbar after a goal. Maybe you yell at your teammates.
Instead of capitalizing on the change, you crumble underneath it.
Ain't nobody got time for that.
We're locked down for 4 weeks here in Minnesota. To all my friends here, and elsewhere that Covid is causing change (which really is everywhere), ask yourself:
"Will I capitalize on this change? Or crumble underneath it?"
Stay frosty, friends.
Josh