Many of us are happy with the status quo so change is the last thing we want in life. However, life doesn't always grant our wishes. Now everyone is faced with major transition from on campus, in class studies to online and distance learning. This might be one of the most difficult transitions you have faced to date. Learning new expectation, drafting new routines, navigating a new system all while managing your emotion during a historical time. Life challenges occur because of social, historical and other outside influences. Dealing with changes can be tough and I am going to share a few tips, based on research, involving studies of stressful life events, and how YOU can get through even the toughest transitions!
Grace
Giving yourself and others grace during time of transition is important. Everybody is in this transition together and we are all learning something new and undiscovered at the same time. What is Grace? The dictionary defines grace as "courteous goodwill". What that means for us is having the goodwill to allowing ourselves the room to make mistakes, to learn and trust a new process as well as hold that same courtesy for relationships with people around us.
Setting a Routine
Transitions are difficult because it breaks our patterns and our routines. That often interferes with learning and engagement in pro-social interaction with peers. A great strategy is to develop a new set of routines that help you incorporate the new pattern. There are several ways you can do this: You can start day-by-day and map only your day out each morning. Work to commit to that schedule. Make sure to consider how to incorporate diversity within your schedule. For example, don't make it all about work. Take time for yourself: Self care, connection, interaction, and exercise all need to part of your daily plan. Build these in to time frames between work sessions to break up the monotony.
Use Stress as an Opportunity
Stress is in the eye of the beholder. You can take a situation and you can be afraid of it or you can take a situation and turn it into an occasion to rise above and conquer! Remind yourself of your resiliency. You have overcome many things in life so far. Some of those time were very difficult and stressful, yet you made your way through it. We all hold resiliency. Often all we have to do is remind ourselves it is there so we can tap into all of it's benefits.
Focus
Focus on the positive! In everyday life, the words we hear go into our conscious mind and are processed by our unconscious mind. The words and thoughts we process are so powerful that it has the ability to change our bodies down to a cellular level. It is very important that the input into your mind is positive. Our bodies respond to this positivity, and oppositely respond to negativity as well. For example, you are in charge of what you are watching on the TV. There is plenty to watch that is positive, funny, educational, and lighthearted. Save the horror movies and heavy dramas for after this major transition.