Small Updates, Big Relief: Rethinking Change

Are you feeling it?  I’m feeling it.  The Spring stirrings for change, for a refresh. I’m here in Chicago so we are still solidly in winter some days, and then we get a 72 degree day just to keep things interesting. But the days are longer and the low temperatures aren’t quite so bitter and we know Spring is here.

My coaching and organizing clients fall into 3 camps, historically - the “It’s a new season, let’s do EVERYTHING differently!” group, the “change is difficult, so I hesitate to make even small changes” group, or the “Wait, what, it’s Spring?  Why change?”.  And all are reasonable states of being.

Thinking about this topic as I headed out for an appt this morning, I realized I can be in all of those states of being in a matter of moments! Leaving my garage, I noticed rubbish in our alley now that all the snow has melted. The impulse was to leap out of the car, pick up all the trash, ooh - and then I could rake and mow and then plant a garden! And then, almost immediately after, I said to myself NO! I don't have time for that! It's too cold, I would mess up my clothes before my appointment, ugh, when WILL I find the time to do it? etc., etc.

As I drove, I came up with a more reasonable plan of attack to update... just update. Not freak out, and not abandon all hope. Just update.

I often suggest that we make changes.  And I want to remind you that there is always a choice. I remind my clients that the agenda for our work together is their agenda.

Any changes you want to make are your own.  AND I am here to support you.  

I share ideas here and hope that they resonate with you, my community. I was pleasantly surprised when I went out to breakfast with my family a few weekends ago.  A woman who has been to presentations and events with me along the way was leaving the restaurant with her family at the same time I was leaving with mine. If she's listening, Hi Nancy!  And she was excited about the recent topic of The Done List. 

I don't know if she reads my newsletters or listens to my podcast or both, but she said The Done List idea really resonated with her.  I am so glad. I discover cool ideas or suggestions that resonate with me, and I hope that in sharing that they resonate with you, too. That they can be implemented, if you choose, to make life better for yourself. 

I know, not every idea or episode or newsletter will click with you. Regardless, the topics I introduce are meant to be suggestions.  Just that. 

And I guess I want to soften the suggestions today and every day, really, with a reminder that personal development is a choice, you always have a choice.

Because sometimes making change feels hard. I can share an idea and you may think something like,  “That’s a great idea, Colleen, but I'm not ready to take anything new on. I'm already overwhelmed.” 

In keeping with the recent articles on self care and giving ourselves some grace, this topic is a similar perspective shift that I invite us, you and me, to think about. 

We never have to change everything. We’re never truly starting over or starting from scratch.

I try not to say never and always, or should or must.  But I will keep the never this time!  The good news is, we rarely have to change everything all at once. 

What is more likely and comfortable and sustainable for most of us, in most of our seasons of life, we might just need to get back to our usually scheduled habits, or make small changes over time.  

And I want to remind us all of that because change can feel hard.  So let’s think about updates. That was the word that was floating around in my noggin as I pondered what I want my message to be to my community this week? And it was the idea of updates. 

For example:

Somewhere along the way, in the last 30+ years (I looked it up), the first team created the first smartphone. I’m grateful to them every day, to have this much communication power right here in my pocket. 

That team created the idea, built the prototype, fashioned the first operating system.  And other teams have improved and expanded and fine tuned the idea since then.

And when we buy a new smartphone, we reap the benefit of all the work that was done to invent the smartphone and also all the work that has been done to improve and expand the smartphone.  Without even thinking about it, we receive the cumulative knowledge and all the updates to the hardware and also the operating system from those last 30 years, too.

When we buy a phone today, we don’t start with an empty box. We don’t start at zero. There's a whole lot that's already in place. There’s the phone, sure, and the operating system, and we continually receive updates.  

Some are big updates, I know, and that can be startling when our screen doesn’t look the same anymore. I have an Iphone, and some updates are pushed out to our phones, and sometimes we choose to buy a new phone and changes come with that. 

But we are almost never starting from scratch. We are more likely updating, as opposed to starting over or having to feel overwhelmed because we have to make everything different all at once. 

Sometimes we feel like change is huge and ginormous and uncomfortable, and it's going to take forever and it's going to be expensive, and it's so overwhelming, I don't know where to start. 

Does this sound familiar: “I want to be more productive, but changing my routine is hard and I have little kids or aging parents and I don’t have the time and making change is hard so I'm never going to do it.”

Or this: “I want to look at taking on new responsibilities at work but that feels scary and overwhelming.”

We inflate these things more than we need to. And I say we, meaning me, too.

But I'm just suggesting that perhaps it’s an update. It’s not a new operating system, a new language, a new country.

A real life example: I have a client who pays me via Venmo. Many do. For some reason, even when she pays me - and she did! - and I acknowledged the payment the other day because this has been happening, she will receive a reminder from Venmo to pay the request she has absolutely paid.  Every month it seems, she receives a reminder to pay an invoice that has already been paid. 

She is correct. But here's the deal. I did not send the invoice. Venmo sent the invoice. And we don’t know why. I made sure on my side that the request was paid. She has done the right thing. 

I have done the right thing. We have done the right thing together.

And for some reason, she's getting a reminder to pay an invoice that she already paid. So she is understandably frustrated and confused.  And while I would like to follow up with Venmo about the issue and likely will, I don’t even know what the issue is. And slogging through hours with customer service does not sound fun.

But I also suggested a workaround that should solve the problem for us in the future. And she said that sounds like a great idea. I don't have to reload my app, I don't have to recreate Venmo, I don’t need to find a new money transfer app. Thank goodness because that's not my strength. 

I don’t have to start over. I can text her our invoice amount, and she can Venmo me the $$.   

If there's still a problem, maybe we dig deeper. But that was also a workaround. Cool. 

I didn't have to change everything. I didn't have to get overwhelmed. I just needed an update There was a bug that needed to be fixed.

I love the description of some operating system updates. “it fixes a few bugs.” Like, you know, ‘we did this, and we realized that when we updated this area, this other area got squirrely. 

So we realized we needed to, you know, adjust that so things go smoothly again.’ Love that.

Let's do that more often, for ourselves. Updating as opposed to starting over or starting from scratch or making things far more complicated than they need to be. Updating, tweaking. 

Let's just update instead of installing a whole new operating system or feeling like we have to create one.

I will finish where I started with the reminder that you get to choose what you want to update. 

You get to choose what bugs you want to fix. As it should be.  And maybe instead of huge changes, maybe we don't need to feel overwhelmed. We can start really small and update small habits or processes and reap benefits, instead of feeling like we have to change everything to make progress and then we never do.

And when I offer suggestions like self care and cutting ourselves some grace or creating a done list, and those resonate with you, great. And if not, that’s fine, too. Maybe that's not a bug that you need to fix. Maybe that's not an adjustment you need. Maybe that's not what you need updated. 

Let's work on small adjustments, fixing bugs here and there, knowing that we own the process and knowing that we don't have to start over. We don't have to start from scratch. We're never rebuilding from zero. Maybe it's just time for an update.