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Overcoming our fear of the unknown is the key to making positive change, says Alice Olins

Many of us will have been forced into making a pandemic-related change, but even if you haven’t, the flux in the air has got people thinking about what else could lie ahead.

The thing about change is that is comes accompanied by two side dishes: excitement and fear. And most often, it’s the latter that takes hold. We know that an exciting opportunity could lie just outside our comfort zone, but making that leap feels impossible. I get it. We’re hardwired to think negatively, and this leads to inertia, followed by guilt and despondency. While this cycle is a classic response to thoughts of change, it’s one we can learn to break. Here’s how:

KEEP YOUR MINDSET POSITIVE Manage perfectionist tendencies Change inevitably involves giving away some control and this sends perfectionists into overdrive. If that’s you, keep your need to do everything ‘right’ in check by unpicking why your standards for yourself are so high and what might happen if you don’t meet them. Practise working to 80% perfect – and notice what happens. The more comfortable you become challenging your perfectionism, the easier it is to let go a little. Use positive affirmations These can retrain the negative thought patterns that stop us moving forward. For maximum power, affirmations should be specific to a certain issue, said with emotion and in the present tense. So say, ‘I am courageous enough to make this change,’ on repeat when those niggly thoughts start to circulate.

LEARN TO COPE WITH RISK Find your zone of safety Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell has a rule of thumb about coming to a point of action. He says that whenever you face a hard choice – or new start – you should have no less than 40% and no more than 70% of the information you need to make that decision*. Powell calls it your ‘zone of safety’; I love this because it proves we do best when we welcome in a degree of risk. Try it yourself with something small, such as speaking up in a meeting or reaching out to a new contact, and practise how it feels. Think differently about risk and you’re already halfway there. Ask, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ When it comes to taking risks, we fear they might not pay off and any positive change goes up in a puff of smoke. A proven way to counter this all-or-nothing thinking is by playing out all likely outcomes. Say you fear pivoting into a new industry, if you made the move and it didn’t work out, what would that actually look like for you?

The more you can explore and inhabit potential outcomes, the less risky your change becomes.

ONE STEP AT A TIME Use your diary We tend to think that once we commit to change it has to happen immediately. Wrong. Change is a process and it requires planning. Get into a ‘stepping-stones’ frame of mind, and break that change down into its composite parts. Then, start diarising what needs to happen – maybe you need to rework your Linkedin bio and CV. Identify, schedule, commit.

Reward yourself Try assigning small rewards to the more granular elements of your new start, and a bigger one when you’ve pushed it over the line. Everything from 20 minutes online shopping to a day off to meet friends are worthy rewards. Enjoy thinking about yours, and commit to them by adding them to your diary, too.