How to embrace change: Najwa Zebian shares her top 5 tips
Najwa Zebian, author and activist, shares her top tips for navigating change in her new book, “The Only Constant: A Guide to Embracing Change and Leading an Authentic Life,” including how to sit with discomfort and discover your true potential.
The only constant in life is change. We all know that. Even with that knowledge, we tend to do everything in our power to minimize the disruption or destabilization of our comfort zone. Najwa Zebian, author and activist, wants you to become the agent of change in your own life because it’s the only way to create the reality you desire. What’s stopping you, she says, is anxiety and fear of the unknown. And whilst these are real challenges, they’re also surmountable.
Zebian is here to walk us through five ways to embrace change, based on her latest book, “The Only Constant: A Guide to Embracing Change and Leading an Authentic Life.”
Tip 1: Let your world revolve around you
You read that right. You may have been conditioned to believe that putting yourself first means you are self-centered and selfish. You’re not. Especially if you grew up in a culture or in a family dynamic that heavily prioritizes the best interest of the collective over that of the individual, you may be ridden with guilt and shame just by contemplating being the center of your own attention. You may resist speaking up, standing up for yourself, saying what you mean, and acting in a way that serves your best interests. You might even feel your body completely shut down the moment you decide to put yourself first. This is because past versions of you were conditioned to be quiet, submissive, invisible, and small.
Those past versions of you need you. They need you to give them what they needed in that moment of passiveness; to be heard, celebrated, and fully seen. In turn, they will be drivers of change for you.
When you allow your world to revolve around you, not only will you learn to accept change when it breaks you down, but you’ll also start living more authentically. Being healed means that you are so in touch with who you truly are that you step into a protective role for your authenticity every time you feel that it is being excluded. To become your true self, typically there comes a point where you recognize how harmful your current reality is to you or how out of alignment with your values it is.
“Remind yourself: “I always have a choice.” Even if the choice you make is one that comes at a breaking point for you, take pride in the fact that you were able to walk away. ”
Tip 2: See yourself as a person of choice
Stop sitting in the passenger seat, in the car of your life. You need to be the driver deciding where you're headed, which path you're taking, and when you will slow down and speed up. I know that's scary, especially if you find more comfort in being told what to do and being shown how to do it.
You’re way more likely to see change as a necessary means to the life that you want to live when you see yourself as a person of choice. Maybe you feel pressure to meet certain milestones or take a specific path. Remind yourself: “I always have a choice.” Even if the choice you make is one that comes at a breaking point for you, when you can no longer handle the pain of being where you are, do not say “I had no other choice.” Take pride in the fact that you were able to walk away.
Tip 3: Tie change to the kind of life you want to live
When you allow yourself to be guided by your goals, your focus won't be on how difficult change is. Instead, you’ll be thinking about how beautiful the life that you want to live will be. Change becomes the necessary tool to get you there. All too often, we focus on how difficult a change is and equate our worth with how capable we are of making it. When we do that, we lose sight of our goals and motivations.
Do you want to live an authentic life? Then let your decisions for yourself reflect that. Let them lead you to that life. Make the necessary changes to get to a point where you can say: “I wouldn't want to live my life in any other way. I’m not betraying myself. I’m not shrinking myself to fit into certain environments. I'm not dimming my light to protect others’ eyes.”
“Don’t forget to thank the past versions of yourself that struggled with change. You would not be where you are right now had they not made it through. ”
Tip 4: Figure out the limits of your survival mode
When you are in survival mode, you have one goal: to protect yourself. And while you may shield yourself from the bad, you also run the risk of shutting out the good. We all want to be truly seen and fully accepted for who we are.
To get there, it’s important to stop focusing on surviving, and instead, learn to live, in every meaning of the word. Remember that you’re a bird and this survival mode cage actually has the door wide open. You can choose to venture outside anytime you'd like. Eventually, you’ll begin to see very clearly how much more you enjoy living in full expansion of your authenticity than you do when you’re forcing yourself to fit into a very tiny space.
Tip 5: Allow yourself to grieve
Think of any change in your life that happened that completely shook your world — the death of a loved one, a break-up, or the loss of a job. Before acceptance of that change, comes denial, anger, bargaining, and depression. There is a proposed sixth stage of grief as well: finding meaning. We can’t get to that without going through all the “ugly” stages.
Allow yourself to grieve all the people and dreams you were sad to lose including past versions of you. But remember, you now get to decide to put all your pieces back together and create a person who knows who they are and who chooses for themselves. Don’t forget to thank the past versions of yourself that struggled with change. You would not be where you are right now had they not made it through.
So will you choose today to embrace change and focus on building a stronger you? I hope your answer is “yes.”
About The Only Constant
A wise and tender guide to coming to terms with impermanence and recognizing that change is the force that allows you to become you—from the celebrated author of Welcome Home.
Whether it’s your job, your relationships, or just the way you move through the world, if you’re like most people you have something in your life you’d like to change. And sometimes, unwanted change comes all too swiftly: a breakup, a death, an upheaval to the everyday reality you thought you could rely on. Dr. Zebian guides you through the changes we must make and those we must endure on the journey to our most authentic lives. She quiets the noise, teaches us to accept ourselves as we are now, and helps us focus on the necessity and beauty of those messy transitional times.
Ultimately, Dr. Zebian teaches that the purpose of change is to step into the world as your most authentic self. Yes, change is scary. You may want to hide from it by clinging to your past. But embracing change is the path to shedding old ideas of who you are and living your life as your true self.
About Najwa Zebian
Najwa Zebian is a Lebanese Canadian activist, author, speaker, and educator with a doctorate in educational leadership.
Dr. Zebian is the author of four books that guide readers to navigate hard emotions, most recently Welcome Home, Dr. Zebian delivered the TEDx talk “Finding Home Through Poetry." Her work has been featured in The New York Times, Glamour, Elle Canada, HuffPost, and more.
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