You know how snakes and lizards shed their skin in order to grow? I’m starting to think that people do that too. Not literally of course (kind of a nasty thought), but in the sense that sometimes we get stuck in a rut in our lives. We’re prone to feeling stuck in our own skin, our current life situation, and it can start to feel claustrophobic after a while. You ever find that? When that happens – and I’ve been there a couple times myself – I find that change is our ally.
Sometimes it’s a small change that’s required to make us feel better; other times, it’s an entire change of our circumstances. Either way, it can be hard to let go of something that’s familiar. That’s often exactly what’s required though, in order to embrace something new and different. That apprehension is exactly how we get stuck in a rut in the first place, and action in spite of it is how we get ourselves out.
Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz talked about the third place – our comfy place between work and home – as a need that Starbucks was able to fill for people. But change often happens in our lives in three places as well.
First is home – our personal lives. Maybe it’s a relationship change, maybe it’s moving to a new city, or maybe it’s starting a new fitness routine. Change can take an infinite number of forms here.
Then there’s work. Change there could be a new project, a new role, or a new company entirely – sometimes that’s what’s required in order to get out of your funk.
Lastly, there’s your third place. It might be the gym, your tennis club, your best friend’s house or any number of other places. Sometimes circumstances change, and that third place isn’t the safe space it once was.
Getting stuck in a rut in any of these scenarios often leads to a spill-over effect that permeates into the other spaces. Issues in our personal lives spill into work, issues in our work spill into our third place, and issues in our third place can spill into our personal lives, like the world’s worst game of Rock-Paper-Scissors.
In all cases, the only solution is change – the shedding of our metaphorical skin. Change doesn’t necessarily mean walking away from something – it could also mean making an attempt to repair a challenging situation or relationship, where previously you wouldn’t have tried. Without change, however, you’ll stop growing, held back by skin that’s one size too small for you.
We all need to shed our skin every once in a while to keep on growing – is it time for you to do the same?
