This is the third in a series of four posts about thriving in change. In the first two posts (1 and 2), I explored why change can feel so hard and what happens between us when we are under pressure. In this post, I look at what it can mean to reclaim a sense of agency — not by forcing ourselves to feel better, but by making small, conscious shifts.
After everything I've described in the previous posts: the threat response, the stress reactions, the way pressure can erode our interactions, it would be easy to conclude that we are at the mercy of our circumstances. That change happens to us, and all we can do is endure it.
And yet, as human beings, we are very adaptive and resilient. Some of us are even like roly-poly dolls: no matter how often we get knocked down, we just bounce back. My experience is that there are things we can do to increase our resilience, if we so choose and have the needed support and capacity.
I want to share some things that have worked for me. My intention is not to set demands, nor do I claim that these will work for everyone. I just want to share what I have learned in the hope that it could help someone else, too.
Over the years, I've found that even in the middle of difficult change, there are things I can do that make a difference. Not dramatic, heroic things. Small, quiet shifts in how I relate to what's happening. I think of these as ways of reclaiming my agency, of moving from a place where I feel that things are happening to me toward a place where I have more choice.
This is not about positive thinking or pretending that everything is fine. And it is certainly not about demanding to "just get on with it." It's about exploring gently, where the room for choice might be.
Agency as a spectrum
I find it helpful to think of agency not as something we either have or don't have, but as a spectrum. At times, we may feel that we have very little influence over what is happening, that decisions are being made elsewhere, that our voice doesn't count, that we are stuck. At other times, we may feel a stronger sense of agency. We feel that there are things we can do, choices we can make, that we can influence what happens.
Most of us move along this spectrum depending on the situation, the day, or even the hour. There is no fixed position and no judgment attached to where we find ourselves at any given moment. What I've found is that it can be useful simply to notice where I am and explore whether there might be a small step that could increase my sense of agency.
The stories we tell ourselves
One of the things I've found most powerful is paying attention to the stories I tell myself about what is happening.
Under stress, our thinking tends to narrow. We construct stories about our situation that can feel absolutely true, but that may only reflect one angle.
"I have no choice."
"They don't care about us."
"There's nothing I can do."
These thoughts are understandable, and they often arise directly from the pressure we're under. But they can also keep us locked into a low-agency space by closing down the space for alternatives.
A small experiment I've found useful is to gently change these stories and how I talk to myself.
For example, when I change "I have to do this" to "I choose to do this, because...", that small shift in language changes my emotional state. I become curious about my inner motivation to do things. I feel empowered because I state that I have a choice. I notice that it can open up a surprising amount of breathing room.
Similarly, "They should do something about this" can become "I would like them to..." or "I need them to." This moves me from frustration toward something more like a request or a wish and connects me to my inner needs.
And "I can't" might become "I want to" or "I wonder how I could..." , which keeps the door open rather than closing it.
I have noticed that my inner dialogue has a huge impact on my emotional state. Making small changes in how I think and frame things has helped me reclaim my agency. These are ways to gently question the story I am telling myself and open my mind to other possibilities.
Loving reality
There is a phrase I've come to use in my work that can sound counterintuitive at first: loving reality.
It doesn't mean liking what is happening. It doesn't mean agreeing with decisions I disagree with or accepting things I want to change. It means acknowledging what is actually here, right now, rather than spending my energy fighting the fact that things are not as I wish they were. It means letting go of the emotional package and coming to terms with what is.
This is as hard as it sounds. How can I love something that is deeply upsetting to me? When change disrupts something important to us, a part of us can get stuck in a loop of "this shouldn't be happening" or "things should be different." That's a completely natural reaction. But staying in that loop for a long time can be exhausting, because it sets us in opposition to something that has already happened.
Loving reality is about releasing that opposition, letting go of the struggle against what is. It's a way of saying: this is where I am, this is what I feel and need. I don't have to like it. But I can start from here.
In my experience, this kind of acceptance is not a passive act. It is actually the starting point for agency, because it shifts my energy from resisting what has already happened to engaging with what I can do now. After all, we can't change the past; we can only act in the present.
Recalibrating my brain
Part of what makes change so draining is that our brains hold onto expectations about how things should be. We expect - often unconsciously - the future to be like the past, and we expect that what worked before will also work in the future. When reality doesn't match our expectations, the gap between the two generates discomfort, sometimes a great deal of it.
When I notice that something I never thought would happen has happened, it means I need to recalibrate my brain to come to terms with what is happening. This doesn't mean lowering my standards or giving up on what matters. Neither does it mean being cynical, pessimistic, or hopeless.
It means adjusting what my brain treats as "normal" so that I am not constantly measuring the present against a past that no longer exists. I can accept that what brought success earlier might not work in this new situation. It means being curious about how the world really works now. This is a quiet, internal move that can make a surprising difference to how I feel.
I have learned that I need to recalibrate quite often, both with big things, like Russia invading Ukraine or a pandemic that closed down the world, and with smaller things, like changes at work, getting older, or having health issues.
My brain hates recalibration
Our brains like things to stay the same, so we can reuse familiar patterns. It saves energy and makes life feel predictable and easier to handle.
But life isn’t like that. In real life, everything keeps changing, sometimes in ways we like, sometimes in ways we don’t.
For me, one of the key recalibrations I have made is accepting and expecting things to change; change is the nature of the universe. This happens at the individual level as we grow older, within teams, within organizations, with new technologies, and with changes in the environment. This can be scary, but it can also be exciting and energizing. When I think about this, I like to remind myself that my brain is threat-oriented and I am more likely to see threats than possibilities, so I need to look for them. Being curious about what happens next has helped me.
Conscious choices
Ultimately, what I'm describing here is the practice of making conscious choices.
Not big, dramatic choices, but small ones.
Choosing to notice my own stress reactions, to acknowledge my needs and feelings. Choosing to question a thought that is keeping me stuck. Choosing to accept what is, so that I can engage with what's possible and act in the present. Choosing to adjust my expectations when the old ones are no longer serving me.
One such conscious choice is to take ownership of the change. Even when I do not initiate the change or can't control the outcome, I can choose to take ownership of the impact on myself, of how I react and what I do. I can choose to do my utmost best to thrive, whatever the circumstances and outcome.
I think that power is where the focus is.
The more I focus on what I have done and what I can do, the more power I claim. The more I focus on what others have done and should do, the more power I give away.
In my experience, we can learn to make conscious choices, but they require some energy and a lot of practice. Fortunately, there seems to be plenty of opportunities to practice these in the current turbulent world, if we so choose.
These are things I've found useful in my own life and in my work with others. They are offered here as an invitation, a set of possibilities to explore, if and when the moment feels right.
Learning these skills is easier when we have support and are learning them together, which is what the final post in this series is about.
