What are your tips for adapting to change?

Posted by Anne Moessner @amoessner, Jul 17, 2020

We’ve all heard the expression “change is inevitable”. Inevitable or not, many people who have had a brain injury notice that adapting to change is more challenging (and energy consuming) than it was pre-injury. Planning ahead and humor can help. What strategies help you adapt to or accept change?

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Change is one of my favorites, because I worked in the IT field I was usually the one who ‘delivered’ changes. Most often they came from above, either management or the State. But I often had to explain why and how.
My recommendations: Assess the change. Is it inevitable or not? If it is, embrace it. If you fight it, it is a losing battle and you make it difficult for everyone, especially yourself.
How am I going to be affected? Short term, what is the learning curve? Long term, is it going to improve what I do or make it more difficult? On a scale of one to ten, is it really worth raising a fuss over, if it is, do you have a better solution?
Obviously for all of us, the concern is the changes we have had to accept as a result of our TBI and other injuries related to our event. Much of what we deal with is inevitable. Again, we need to make some assessments. “Do I need to do the things I used to do? Are there other things that I could do that would bring me joy as did my previous favorites? Will being negative make the situation better?”
We have choices, not just in what we say or do, but most of us can control how we feel, our emotions, our likes and dislikes.
At least give it a try. Give it your BEST try!

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I agree, hevykevy, with your whole statement. Well put. Some days, I just accept change as I’m too exhausted to do anything else.

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I really struggle with change. My anxiety level increases, threshold for frustration decreases and I usually have a good cry. My goal each day is not to cry. Some days I make it more days I don’t. I worry about not keeping up or being productive enough on my job and being let go. Since my car accident so many things have changed-Where I live, the number of hours I work, how I feel about driving.often I feel overwhelmed by change and take no action which only makes matters worse.

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@kk2019

I really struggle with change. My anxiety level increases, threshold for frustration decreases and I usually have a good cry. My goal each day is not to cry. Some days I make it more days I don’t. I worry about not keeping up or being productive enough on my job and being let go. Since my car accident so many things have changed-Where I live, the number of hours I work, how I feel about driving.often I feel overwhelmed by change and take no action which only makes matters worse.

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So get up each day and move forward or chew. If you have to eat an elephant eat it one bite at a time.

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@kk2019

So get up each day and move forward or chew. If you have to eat an elephant eat it one bite at a time.

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“Eating an elephant one bite at a time”! 🤣

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For me it's just getting up and putting one foot in front of the other and keep moving. I agree with others that change increases stress levels, increase stress levels results in headaches. Headaches and there are to many kinds specific areas of my head but the worse is my migraines.

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