Even positive change can be stressful

Have you reached your 'FI Point' yet?

It's been a funny old week, I feel very much in limbo land at the moment.  We're due to move house in two days so there's been lots of to-ing and fro-ing recently and I don't feel like I belong anywhere at the minute.

Change, as we know, is stressful.  It often involves a step into the unknown.  Sometimes it's forced upon us due to things out of our control and at other times, we instigate it ourselves.  Any kind of change is stressful, even positive change.  We made the decision to buy the house, we know the area and, best of all, it's still close to my running trails, I literally have to walk round the corner to the footpath.  It's all positive so why are we stressed about it.

Well, for a start, there was lockdown to contend with.  We'd arranged for several major things to be carried out on the house before we moved in - digging up the garden, fitting a new kitchen and having an orangery built.  These should have been completed by our initial move date of 28/04.  That didn't happen of course as everything came to a standstill during lockdown and at that point, it was the peak of the Covid crisis.  Over the last few weeks, things have slowly started returning back to normal in terms of deliveries etc and we've been able to crank up the action again.  I have to say though, that it's squeaky bum time as far as the kitchen is concerned.  It was finally delivered last Tuesday and the fitter is pulling out all the stops to get it done before we move in.  Close to the wire as you can see from the pics below!  Oh, and there's only half an orangery at the moment.  On the plus side, the garden is looking quite nice ... priorities eh?!!

So, going back to the title of the blog, 'Have you reached your 'FI Point' yet?'.  You see, the way I tend to deal with stress is that I get more and more wound up until I reach my 'FI Point', that is to say, 'F*** It Point'.  This is a good place to be in my case as it means I've had all the meltdowns I'm going to have, been through all the 'oh my god' scenarios, I've gone through the storm and I'm now able to start dealing with things in a calm and logical manner.  It happens every time, I have to reach the FI Point in order to deal with the change, whether it's positive change or not so nice change.  Oh, and I'm a list person too, I've found that if I make a list of everything that needs doing that tends to help me work through the problems.

How do you deal with change?  We all have our own little idiosyncrasies.  Some people are able to deal with change as it happens, others need time to think and reflect before they can deal with it.  We're all different and there's no right or wrong way.  THE most important thing to remember is that although we might not think it at the time, we do always have a choice in the way we deal with it.  Take a look back at last week's blog on 'How to flip your thinking' as this is something that could help you deal with change.  You could start off with 'How would a confident and calm person deal with this change', then list all the things you think that person would do.

I'm a big believer in experimenting with different ways of doing things to find the one that works for you.  Don't let life be something that just happens to you, don't let change overwhelm you, take back the control and make the necessary choices to enable you to be the best you and live your best life.

Hmm, let's see how things go over the next week, I could be rocking in the corner!!

#2020