Change Doesn't Have to be Bad

No one likes change—or so that’s what they say. There are certainly many things in life that we’ve become comfortable with. Things that increase our anxiety if someone threatens to change them. But imagine if we spent our entire life never changing anything? Change can be a good thing. We might not realize we’re wasting time and energy worrying about a change that might not be so bad. Perhaps we might even like it. Nurses Announcements Archive

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Specializes in Leadership | Psychiatric Nursing | Education.

During one of my graduate classes one of the students was assigned a presentation on change theory. The rest of the class wasn't aware of the assignment, only the professor who helped implement the experiment the student intended to conduct. The student's intention was to display people's response to change.

The professor announced that the day and time of our class was going to be changed. The result was, as expected, an uproar. The other nursing students verbalized why they opposed the change for various reasons. Initially, I was upset-because change is bad, right? Don't we all like things to stay a comfortable status quo?

What if we paused to consider the potential benefits to the change first rather than reflexively resisting it? Regardless of our desire to stay creatures of habit, change is inevitable. If we don't confront change and determine how to manage it, it might manage us instead. Weighing us down with worry and fears that deplete our energy and raise our anxiety for things that may never happen.

Resistance Is Futile

Once I thought through the proposed schedule change, I realized that the new class schedule might work better for me. Then the professor revealed that this was an experiment, and that there wouldn't be a change to the class. Everyone was relieved, except me. I was looking forward to the change. The student's experiment did reveal one thing. I examined other aspects of my nursing career and realized that sometimes I might like change.

This was one of the reasons I liked the rapidly changing pace and patients of the admission unit that other nurses didn't like to work on. This new understanding took some adjusting to since I'd been conditioned to believe that change is usually initially resisted and seen as a threat. Change brings the fear of the unknown, it risks losing something we're comfortable with, or can make us feel a loss of control and worry about the uncertainties of something new. Because for the most part, many of us don't like surprises either when it comes to our work.

Be an Agent of Change

Perhaps you don't like change. Maybe you even hate it. But by adjusting your attitude about change, you might be more open to examining the options that might accompany the change. You might also save yourself unnecessary worry and stress about all the what ifs that you fear could accompany the change. If none of these fears come to fruition then you've suffered needlessly.

Healthcare changes and evolves rapidly. You might work on the same unit for an extended time, but most likely the way you complete many tasks has changed over that time frame. Often you might be in the role of initiating a change in your unit. To help lead others to begin managing the change and making it a less stressful transition, consider intentionally changing your mindset. Start with examining the opportunities, rather than instinctively considering the threats by:

  • Listening to and communicating ideas rather than deny and resist
  • Help to inspire and educate others on why you might feel the change is necessary
  • Lead people by creating a clear and compelling vision of the destination
  • Utilize stories to connect with personal experience on how it might benefit
  • Consider the impact of the change before implementing
  • Be informative and transparent about what's happening

Dealing with Distress

There are some changes that are out of our control and there simply isn't a positive aspect. The loss of a job, a serious health condition or another personal crisis can occur unexpectedly and completely change our normal. At this point, the focus should be more on managing your reaction and caring for yourself. Eventually, you may adjust to the change, but you can help pave the journey so it's not as rocky.

  • Acknowledge the change
  • Accept that it might take time to adjust
  • Allow time to reflect and manage your fears through journaling or talking with peers
  • Make time to implement positive coping mechanisms and self-care

Change Your Mindset

Change often gets a bad rap. We are creatures of habit and like to become comfortable. I certainly don't want to change my favorite restaurant, but sometimes it's nice to try something new. I might even discover a new favorite. If it wasn't for change, we'd never get to experience the benefits of technology. Plus perhaps we'd still be wearing the nursing caps that I was always knocking off that have long since been retired. The next time a major change is occurring consider rethinking your initial reaction. Even if the change isn't what you desire, you might save yourself some stress and who knows, you might even like the change better.

What Do You Think About Change?

1 Votes

Change should often be embraced.

There are also a lot of circumstances where it deserves its bad rap either because the problem is poorly understood, the change itself is a poor response to the problem, or the change is undertaken in an unnecessarily unpleasant manner.

I would've been a statistic in your class experiment, since I would consider that I paid for something on a few particular terms. I think that particular experiment was 100% disingenuous and isn't representative of the hows and whys of response to change. I think (sorry) examples like that do nothing but continue to promote incorrect judgments about groups of people with the sole aim of invalidating thoughts that are often valid.

People often handle change quite well, and on a large scale. Response to changes that are enforced for one entity's benefit rather than chosen because they make sense on a large scale or clearly benefit more than just one stakeholder are not really good examples for making broad statements about how people accept change or why they sometimes reject it.

0 Votes

Wow. I can't believe the instructor pulled that stunt.

What if the "change" in class time conflicted with other courses the students were taking?

Or with pre-exsisting work schedules?

Or with home, or family obligations, or day care hours.

Way to add phony and unnecessary stress to people who didn't deserve that sort of treatment.

Just...shaking my head.

0 Votes

Wow. I think what the professor did was incredibly cruel. IF that would be have been me, it probably would have sent me into a full blown panic attack because during nursing school my life was set up like a deck of cards. HOWEVER, I absolutely love the message of this post. Most people I know (including myself) have a knee jerk bad reaction at the mention of change.

Thanks for posting this! I have bookmarked it for later to remind myself if I get myself all twisted again.

0 Votes
Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.

Sadly most widespread policy change in the workforce is implemented only to benefit the employers with no consideration as to how that change might affect the employees that are just expected to blindly accept it and comply. There is rarely any real explanation given for why the change is implemented no matter the consequences to the staff, there are some times I think even the facility managers don't have a clue as the only explanation they seem to be able to offer is "it's a corporate decision." Maybe if the process was more transparent, maybe if it was communicated more effectively to the people it impacts the most and definitely if the proposed change was opened to input from the people it will affect before being implemented the change wouldn't automatically be viewed as bad.

0 Votes
Specializes in Family Nurse Practitioner.

The only thing we can control is how we respond to the (constant!) changes that come our way. Resistance is not only futile, but harmful to our health, as it adds to stress overload. Resilience, or the ability to adjust easily to or recover from adversity, is the antidote. Fortunately, resilience is a skill that can be learned. We all need to keep our healthy coping mechanisms top-of-the-mind... for ourselves as well as our patients.

0 Votes
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