For the year of 2014, Susan’s Organizing Solutions owner Susan Layden has focused on a theme which she will revisit throughout the year: Embracing Change, and the many facets of allowing change in one’s life.

how-to-changeThere’s no magic button when it comes to changing.

The idea of change is hard, particularly if you have no interest in doing so. Over years, we develop habits which can be hard to break. It’s the bad ones which present the most difficulty in being changed, mainly because they the results fortify the bad habit-particularly the results of bad organizational habits.

So how do you start to shift your mentality & become more flexible & allow yourself the opportunity to change? Here are three great tips excerpted from TLNT to help get you moving towards embracing change:

1. Focus on the benefits

First of all, most changes won’t devastate you.

My dad typed his dissertation on a typewriter. Then we started using word processors, where you typed into a little window and then hit go when it was ready to type. Then we had WordPerfect for DOS, then WordPerfect for Windows, and then Microsoft Word — and before long, Word was the world’s No. 1 word processing program.

Did you resent the inconveniences of shifting from one to the other? You knew how much the change would benefit you.

2. Reframe the challenge as an opportunity.

Rather than angst about the difficulty you’ll face as a result of the change, offer it to yourself…as a chance to learn something new, improve your workflow, increase your mental flexibility, and hone your agility.

It’s especially effective if you can see it as an adventure, something that adds spice to your life. Just accept the possibility that the change can prove good for you, if you let it.

Many people resisted remote “cloud” backup for their files at first…yet this is clearly the wave of the future, and most who’ve faced the challenge squarely have found it not just easy but also fascinating, opening up whole new possibilities for improved productivity.

3. Phase it in gradually

With rare exceptions, you don’t have to dump your old way of doing something in favor of the new right away. You generally have time to thoroughly investigate the change, dig up and share out the nuggets of gold, and provide any necessary training or tools to smooth the transition.

Don’t change just for change’s sake; that represents an unforgivable waste of resources. Change will inevitably find you. When it does, the secret is to treat it as a surfer would a monster wave: get a little ahead of it and ride it into shore, enjoying the thrill as you harness its power.

These three steps, while representing just a few of the possible ways of embracing change as it occurs, can help you do more than just survive when the wave leaves you in the surf.