As you grow older, change will inevitably become a key part of your life. This is never more true than during your college years, as you will find yourself making sacrifices to reach your goals and making some of the biggest decisions at the most crucial points in your life.
Change can be really, really scary, but it doesn’t have to be. Adjusting how you view change in your life can have a positive impact on your mental health, social well-being and overall happiness in your life.
The power of positive thinking is absolutely necessary for everything in life, and it can especially be helpful when facing big changes in your life. There are a couple of different standpoints to view change from, and each of them stem from positive thinking.
We first have the growth standpoint. This one is probably the most helpful for life-altering changes that are usually seen as negative. Any sort of tragedy or setback that you face in life would be best approached from the growth standpoint. Going through a breakup, losing your job or experiencing death in your family are all tough. Being upset about those things for a while is understandable, but how you bounce back is very important. Every hardship that you face in life is essential for your own personal growth, so keep in mind that life goes on and you will be stronger due to the things that once knocked you down. It sounds extremely cheesy, but everything happens for a reason, and change for growth is a much needed part of life.
If the change is less of a hardship and more of an adjustment, you should look at it from an opportunistic standpoint. One of the most common changes that college students face that can be looked at from an opportunistic outlook is moving away from home. Leaving behind friends, family and the only city you have ever called home is one of the biggest adjustments that you will ever have to face in your life. However, it is helpful to look at it in terms of the chance to do great things, not of fear of the uncertainties of a new life. For many, college brings the opportunity to experience new things, explore interests and discover oneself as a person. Being excited about the future is the easiest way to be ok with letting go of the past, and that’s why opportunistic views of change are so important as you grow up.
The last positive standpoint of change that is important for accepting it into your life is the indifferent standpoint. Being apathetic about things is almost never a positive thing, but sometimes it can be so hard to like the changes in your life that all you can do is just accept it as it is and move on. When something happens your life that absolutely sucks and you can find no silver lining, the most important thing to keep in mind is that it does not define you. There are times when you have to realize that you cannot prevent or reverse change, and all you can do is move past it and accept that it’s there. Although it may seem like this is not a positive way to accept change, it will eventually help you move past it and realize that you are so much more than the changes that come into your life, and that is the most important takeaway for positively accepting change.
Change is hard because as humans, we have trouble letting go of the things that once brought us comfort and joy, but finding happiness in life is much easier whenever you learn to let go and accept change as a positive thing. It is much easier said than done, but once you adjust your mindset about change, it is so much easier to not let them affect you. It is a part of life, especially as you get older, so the sooner you learn to look at it positively, the better you will feel about going forward.