Mindful in 5 Podcast

Embrace Change With Grace

• Spiwe Jefferson • Season 5 • Episode 169

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Workplace change can dim your professional growth, but with the right mindful approach, you can transform fear into opportunity. The Change Reframe technique offers a structured path to embrace transitions with calm curiosity rather than resistance.

• Four-step Change Reframe technique to approach workplace transitions positively
• Identify changes with gentle awareness instead of denial or resistance
• List concerns with peaceful acceptance to make them smaller and manageable
• Find potential positive outcomes for each concern
• Create action plans with cheerful determination to maximize benefits
• Career advice: don't limit yourself to visible job opportunities
• Companies create positions for valuable problem-solvers
• Focus on work that excites you and problems you can uniquely solve

If you're ready to master the art of embracing change with joy and clarity, download our free resource "Bounce Back from Setbacks" in the show notes – practical strategies to help you maintain momentum despite life's surprises.


Transform career setbacks into powerful comebacks with mindful strategies and AI tools that helped me land executive roles as shared in my upcoming book, 'Phoenix Rising - Ignite Your Job Search.' Secure your spot in our exclusive Early Bird community for pre-launch access and an intimate launch event by pre-ordering through the Phoenix Career Chronicles podcast show notes or at spiwejefferson.com today.



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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Mindful in 5, where busy professionals find your peaceful oasis to thrive in complex work environments. I am Spiwa Jefferson attorney, certified mindfulness practitioner and author of the Mindful in 5 book series, here to guide you to a clearer, softer and more supported life. Join me and your fellow mindful ninjas as we explore science-backed mindfulness strategies for successful leaders that you can implement, starting with just five minutes a day. Elevate your work, empower your life, work higher, live stronger. Let's go. Do you find yourself resisting change at work, your mind clouded by fear and uncertainty, longing for the comfort of familiar routines? Fear of change can diminish the joyful light of professional growth, leaving you feeling unsupported and disconnected from exciting new opportunities. In the upcoming Mindful in 5 book, Phoenix Rising Ignite your Job Search. You will meet Jillian Adams, chief marketing officer of a company who is flying high, until she is unexpectedly let go. She does not take that well at all, and you journey with her into her dark season in what is an unfortunate but such a common experience for many employees who find themselves in the same situation. So today we are exploring how to embrace change with grace, bringing a clearer, more peaceful approach to professional transitions, like the kids in this season's imagery. I invite you to come at it with the beginner's mind. It with the beginner's mind Curious, trusting, authentic, creative, resilient and optimistic. Imagine approaching workplace changes with calm curiosity, seeing them as joyful opportunities for growth rather than threats. By developing a mindset of adaptability, you can create a softer, more supportive response to the ever-evolving work environment.

Speaker 1:

Let's explore a soothing technique that I call the change reframe, and here's how it works. Here's how it works. Identify a change that you are facing at work, approaching it with gentle awareness. Sometimes we spend so much time trying to pretend that change isn't happening that even that becomes the stressor. Right. So face the change, because it is much better for you to ride the wave with that change than it is for that change to knock you off your surfboard and wash over you when you are not ready.

Speaker 1:

The second step is list three potential concerns. Acknowledge each one with peaceful acceptance. There is a reason why we run away from change. There is a reason why we don't want to face it, and sometimes it's because we have these big unexpressed worries. And the more that we try and run away, the more that we ignore them, the bigger they get and the scarier they get. So by listing them, you are making them smaller and then more manageable, and that allows you to start to address them. Because I like to say, you cannot change what you do not acknowledge.

Speaker 1:

So that is the logic for listing the three potential concerns that you have about this potential change, without judgment and with just peaceful acceptance. I am concerned about this change because I am worried about my team, because I'm worried about myself, because I'm concerned about my team, because I'm worried about myself, because I'm concerned about the future of my company, because, whatever it is, but list them honestly, because Nobody else is going to see them, just you. And then, for each concern, identify one possible positive outcome or opportunity. Oftentimes, when change happens, the people who are able to jump on that wave and ride with it are the ones who show up within the organization as the change makers, as the people who can lead the rest of their teams through the change, the people who are not sticking their heads in the sand and who are looking creatively at how can we use this point in the company's growth or the point of change within this organization to maybe do things we couldn't do before, or maybe create new positive direction that we did not have before. So this is the logic for each concern identify one positive outcome or opportunity, even if it is one of your own making, frankly, especially if it is one of your own making. And that takes us to the fourth step, which is create an action plan to maximize benefits. Is create an action plan to maximize benefits, embracing the change with cheerful determination. Frankly, wallowing and mourning the change is not going to help you. It will not help your mindset. You might, in fact, find that you are one of many people who are wallowing in fear and upset over whatever the change is, but chances are that attitude is not going to help you and it is probably not going to change whatever the change is that's coming. So this is the logic of embracing that change by creating this action plan to maximize whatever benefits you see as potential opportunities and having that cheerful sense of determination like, yeah, we can do this. And that is how you embrace change with grace. Studies show that this type of cognitive reframing can significantly reduce anxiety about change, fostering a more peaceful and adaptable professional mindset. And who doesn't want that right? The thought-provoking hopefully perspective I will leave you with is hopefully perspective I will leave you with is change isn't just something that happens to you. It can be a joyful invitation to shape your world in new and clear ways.

Speaker 1:

In my first in-house role, I worked at a company in Des Moines called the Principal Financial Group and I had this amazing vice president of my department at the time who later actually became the president of the company, and that just tells you what an innovative thinker and what a wonderful leader he was. But he and I were having a career conversation one day where I was asking him about potential career opportunities for me at the company. It was a mentoring conversation and he said his name was Larry. And Larry said something that I've never forgotten for my entire career. He said Spiwe, sometimes when employees look at their careers, they are looking primarily at those careers in the context of what is available and visible to them, what I encourage you to do, he said.

Speaker 1:

For people like you, jobs will be created. So don't limit yourself to the jobs that you can see, that are posted on any given day, because companies create jobs all the time. So think more about the kind of work that would excite you to do, the kind of solutions you would like to address and where you either want to hone your skills or where you bring really solid expertise to solve the kinds of problems that the organization is facing. And so I pass that along and encourage anybody who is thinking about a shift in your role and as you are reframing, change from something that you cannot control that is happening to you, to something that you can jump on and ride the way for and find new opportunities to thrive. So here is your cheerful challenge for the week Apply the change reframe technique to a current change in your professional life.

Speaker 1:

Notice how it brings a softer, more supported energy to your approach and hopefully it also helps you sleep better at night. If you are ready to master the art of embracing change with joy and clarity, I have prepared a free downloadable resource for you that you can access in the show notes for this episode. It is an overview called Bounce Back from Setbacks, an overview of practical application and strategies to help you maintain momentum despite life's surprises. Remember, the ability to gracefully embrace change is a crucial skill in today's fast-paced work environment. By cultivating this skill with joyful intention, you are not just adapting to your future, but you are actively shaping it with clear purpose and peaceful determination. Clear purpose and peaceful determination May your professional journey be filled with peaceful adaptability and joyful growth. Until next week, this is Fiwe saying be mindful and be well.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for listening to Mindful in 5. If you enjoyed it, share it with a friend, follow and rate it on your favorite podcast platform. Pick up your signed copy of the book and journal from SpeedwayJeffersoncom, or unsigned copies from Amazon, barnes, noble or wherever you get your books. Visit SpeedwayJeffersoncom to download sample chapters of the book, watch videos and become a mindful ninja. Join us on the LinkedIn Mindful in 5 group and share your thoughts. Until next time, be mindful and be well.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Mindful in 5, where busy professionals find your peaceful oasis to thrive in complex work environments. I am Spiwa Jefferson attorney, certified mindfulness practitioner and author of the Mindful in 5 book series, here to guide you to a clearer, softer and more supported life. Join me and your fellow mindful ninjas as we explore science-backed mindfulness strategies for successful leaders that you can implement, starting with just five minutes a day. Elevate your work, empower your life, work higher, live stronger. Let's go.