Navigating change: Five Steps to find calm, joy, and opportunity

Change is a disturbance. Whether it arrives slowly like the shifting of seasons or crashes in like a wave, it often brings a mixture of uncertainty, fear, and possibility.

But what if we approached change as a creative process, an opportunity to explore, rather than something to endure or avoid? We maybe even need to approach change this way, because what is the alternative?

In my new book, Another Door Opens, I use a 5 step framework to support our navigation, which is not particularly linear, but in feeling like we process change, and move through it, the steps help us to gently navigate the things coming our way.

The framework supports our exploration of calm, joy and opportunity - perhaps things that feel like they’ve gone missing in the moment of change. And how we can find opportunity, a better way, when a door closes in our life.

The five steps are useful in all shapes of change, from small micro habit changes, to big macro life changes, positive change like promotion, relationships, moving in together, becoming a parent, to trickier change like losing a job, loss, endings, moving house, divorce.

Play with these steps to start to feel differently about change.

1. Pause – Make Space to Think

Change often triggers urgency. We want answers, certainty, and a clear plan. But real clarity comes when we pause.

• Take a break from input, news, social media, even advice from others and spend time resting and in silence.

• Ask yourself: What is really changing? What am I afraid of? What might be opening up?

• Journaling, meditating, or even a long walk can help your brain shift from reaction to reflection.

Insight grows in the space we create for it.

2. Get Messy – Let Emotions Move

Resisting emotions during change, grief, anger, confusion, only buries them. And this includes positive things, like a promotion - you are allowed to be excited! Getting messy means allowing those emotions to surface without shame.

• Talk openly with someone you trust, or write a letter to yourself expressing what you’re feeling.

• Ask yourself: What is on my mind? What can I control? Where is my energy right now?

• Recognise emotions as energy, not enemies. They carry messages about your values and needs.

Getting honest about how we feel helps us clear the fog.

3. Play – Imagine Possibilities

Once the emotional dust settles, there’s often a blank canvas. Use it. Play with new ideas, unexpected paths, or even absurd dreams.

• Explore options with curiosity, not pressure.

• Ask yourself “what if” questions: What if the best thing happened tomorrow, what would that be?

• Create a mood board, mind map, or list of wild ideas related to your next steps.

Play brings joy back into the process and opens doors you didn’t see before.

4. Try – Take small Step

Ideas are important, but forward movement is what builds confidence. You don’t need a perfect plan. Just a starting point.

• Choose one small experiment. Something reversible, lightweight, but new.

• Ask yourself: What one step can I make today that moves me along?

• Don’t overthink the outcome, focus on what you’ll learn from trying.

Trying is all you owe yourself. Each step gives you data, direction, and confidence.

5. Restart – Be Intentional

Change doesn’t always resolve in a straight line. There will be loops and setbacks. Restarting means coming back to your “why” with intention and integrity.

• Revisit your values. Are your actions aligning with them?

• Ask yourself: Who do I want to be in this moment?

• Adjust your course if needed, but don’t let detours stop your journey.

Change is not one event. It’s ongoing, work in progress, always. And every restart is a chance to do it more consciously.

Navigating change isn’t about controlling it, it’s about collaborating with it. By pausing, allowing emotions, playing with ideas, trying small steps, and intentionally restarting, we create a relationship with change that is less about survival and more about evolution.

You may not always feel ready. That’s okay. Start where you are. And keep coming back to these five steps.

Because change isn’t just what happens to you. It’s also what you choose to create from it.