ACE: Adapting to Change and Excelling

Do we need Change? Do we like Change? Do we accept Change? Do we welcome Change?

"The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude." Oprah Winfrey

"Change your thoughts and you change your world." Norman Vincent Peale

"Life is about change; sometimes it's painful, sometimes it's beautiful, but most of the time it's both." Kristin Kreuk

"Change is the only constant in life." - Heraclitus

Change is inevitable.

Why did Nokia fail? Why did Kodak fail? Why did Moserbaer fail? Why did BlackBerry fail?

All these companies were once leading their respective markets with no or very little competition, but all of a sudden they all started declining. Why? It's a big food for thought.

There could be multiple reasons for their failure, but one common reason was the UNACCEPTABILITY of change. These companies were too complacent, stubborn, and slow to respond to the changing needs and preferences of their customers. None of the above companies understood the requirements of change and hence failed.

ACE stands for "Adapting to Change and Excelling.". It is the mindset of adapting to change and excelling in various aspects of life. It encapsulates the idea of embracing change and leveraging it as an opportunity for personal and professional growth. It emphasizes the importance of being flexible, open-minded, and resilient in the face of challenges.

How do we deal with the change?

Changes are inevitable; we have to deal with this. There could be many ways based on the individual situations and circumstances; however, we can easily deal with the change using the 5 A's model. The model contains 5 A's, which tell about the change systematically.

1. Aware: This is the first stage of the model where we have to have awareness of the changes happening in the surroundings.

2. Accept: This is the second A's of the model, which tells about the acceptability of the changes. Unless we accept the change, we won't be able to act on it, which makes it one of the crucial stages of the model. We have a famous saying about this: "What we resist persists, what we accept transforms." A few key points that will help us accept changes are:

• The action or response to any event is more important than the event itself. It determines the outcome we need.
• Changes are always bitter at first, but the bitterness eventually brings sweetness if we accept it at the right time.
• The more visionary we will be, the more we tend to accept the changes.
• Taking reference to all the positive outcomes of any previous changes will help us accept new changes.

3. Analyze: Any event without proper analysis always leads to a disaster. This is the third A's of the model, which teaches us the importance of analysis. This is nothing, but reframing the approach to how we view situations with a positive outlook.

4. Adopt: Adopt is the fourth A's of the model, which talks about adopting the changes that are already being identified and analysed. The process of adopting the changes starts with identifying the first steps toward it and taking action and implementing the first step.

There is a famous proverb: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

This is a continuous process, which we need to follow till we succeed.

5. Appreciate: This is the final A's of the model, which emphasizes the importance of appreciation. It also talks about emotions, celebrations, etc. Regardless of the outcomes of all the efforts made in all the previous A's of the model, always appreciate and celebrate the changes. We need to understand that not all efforts lead to success, but if we stop putting in effort, we will never succeed.

Source: My thoughts along with multiple articles on LinkedIn, Upgrad, google and ChatGPT.