Confession time: I’ve been in somewhat of a slump. It’s interesting how people generally understand what I mean by “slump” — that sense of not thriving and being stuck in a rut — yet individual experiences with “slumping” have distinct symptoms and causes. One of my friends, for example, described her slumps as feeling unmotivated and unproductive. My current slump has me feeling withdrawn and slightly detached from people (if we hung out recently and I seemed low energy, sorry! blame my slump).
The frustrating thing with slumps — besides being in one — is there’s not always an obvious reason or cause. I’ve been ruminating on what caused mine for a while now and only recently landed on a plausible explanation besides the weather (cold temperatures make me tired and I miss vitamin D).
Confession time part two: I sometimes have a hard time dealing with change. Pause. Let that sink in.
Okay there’s not much to sink since that’s not a particularly outrageous statement. However, I do think I’m worse than the average person at adjusting to unexpected changes — even fairly minor things like social plans shifting last minute or travel plans being delayed can throw me off for an entire day. And the past few months have seen some bigger changes like my manager leaving my team and some of my close friendships changing, not a 180 but enough of a shift for me to have to reorient myself.
Consequently, I’ve been reflecting a lot on my ambivalent relationship with change. After many hours of pondering, my silly CS brain came up with a framework that helps explain my conflicting feelings about change. I realize no one asked for this but my Substack, my rules. I present: The Matrix of Types of Change and How I Emoji React To Them™ (TMOTOCAHIERTT™ for short).
🤠 planned & manageable
I actually welcome this type of change in my life. Change is almost always uncomfortable but remaining stagnant for too long feels worse to me. In fact, one of the early rites of passage I undertook when adjusting from student life to working full-time was to seek out change that spurred me to continue learning and growing as a person since I could no longer count on semesterly course load changes and new classmates. And luckily, NYC is kind of the perfect place to experiment in this area.
Some examples (just in my opinion):
Finding a new hobby
Taking a new class
Volunteering with a new organization
Building new friendships
😀 planned & challenging
This category of change is similar to the one above but the scope is bigger so it’s higher risk, higher reward. I’m not always enthused about this category of change but as long as it’s planned and I feel I have some measure of control over it, I can manage pretty well.
Examples:
Moving to a new city
Changing teams or companies for work
Breakups where you’re the initiator
🤨 unplanned & manageable
I tend to approach this category of change with optimism. I may not have initiated the change myself, but once I’ve accepted it’s happening, I can focus on what I can control which is how I react, learn, and grow from this experience.
Examples:
A friend moving away (which I find harder to deal with than if I were the one moving away)
A teammate leaving the team or company
However, if too many of these types of changes happen too quickly, they turn into the last and least fun category of change.
🫠 unplanned & challenging
Double whammy! Change that’s unplanned and thus uncontrollable AND hard to deal with.
Examples:
Losing a job
Breakups where you’re on the receiving end
Multiple friends moving away
The boundary between “manageable” and “challenging” is blurry and different people have different definitions. For me, the crossover from “manageable” into “challenging” happens when optimism becomes a choice and is not necessarily what I always choose — in other words, when it takes a nontrivial amount of strength to be optimistic.
That’s not to say this type of change is categorically bad. I firmly believe there are positive side effects with any change — at the very least, mental fortitude and the resiliency to adapt to future life events. But this type of change can also overwhelm and instead of acting as a catalyst for growth, it can become an inhibitor that stops you in place. And so I’ve been stopped.
Just kidding! I’m no Debbie Downer so we’re not going to end on this note.
next steps
In my case, I’ve lost my footing trying to adjust to one too many unplanned changes that by themselves, would’ve each been somewhere between manageable and challenging. A clear solution then would be to focus my time and energy adjusting and thriving in one area before moving to the next. Or wait for Daylight Savings Time and the extra vitamin D to de-slumpify me.
Sorry, I know this solution is hyperspecific to my own situation. General advice? Slumps are hard to get out of even when you’ve diagnosed the cause. Unfortunately I don’t have generalizable guidance for my fellow slumpers.
As always, I’d love to talk IRL and continue developing these thoughts with a pal :D
obsessed with TMOTOCAHIERTT™