As a change speaker, Fredrik Haren elucidates the importance of change, why we develop a fear of the obscure, and how to change our view in a constantly evolving world.
Importance of change
Without challenging the now, including our existing beliefs and processes, we will never be able to better ourselves and everything around us.
How then will we ever move forward? How can we bring ourselves closer to a more promising tomorrow? As our change speaker puts it, there is no growth nor movement in the absence of constant change.
That is not to say that we simply shun what has been passed down to us from those before us. What will we have learned then? Rather, we accept change as an opportunity to expand our horizons, and along with this expansion comes endless possibilities.
It is an irony when staying in one place where we deem is safe is not at all beneficial for us. Rather, it brings more harm than good when we resist such force to naturally flow through our existence. This, the change speaker believes, is a spice of life.
Yet, if change is so necessary, then why do we fear it?
Fearing the unknown
Imagine being forced to stand in front of a crowd to speak when you’ve never done it before. Even as a professional change speaker, Fredrik has not been immune to stage frights. Dreading the judgment of peers as you utter word after word, leaving you feeling ashamed and helpless. Eventually, you just want the ground to swallow you whole to escape the situation you are in.
It is in the nature of humans to develop fear when they are not in their comfort zones. Anything beyond our safe space will always be uncharted territory, an area we would gladly avoid in exchange for comfort in the known. Our change speaker admits though, that change is a journey each and every one of us should undergo.
A different perspective
While Fredrik understands that not knowing what lies ahead may be scary, the change speaker believes that instead of resisting the uncomfortable, we can learn to shift fear into thrill by changing perspectives.
When we are out of our element, there is plenty of room for mistakes, thus plenty of room to learn. Nobody expects us to be the best at something we just recently got into. When we start looking at negative outcomes into learning experiences, just like our change speaker, we begin to find joy in everything we do-new or old. More importantly, we uncover more and more who we are.
Mastery of perspective takes time. One must start learning to initiate change to welcome it. Once we start to slowly look at things in multiple ways than just one, that is when we start becoming true champions of change.
