Overcoming Your Fear of Change

Making a change can be challenging, especially when change involves major life transitions. When you think about making a change, you might go back and forth, not knowing what to do.  But it's not unusual to have mixed feelings about making a transition, even when you know logically that it would be for the best.

Fear of Change

What Does Fear of Change Look Like?

For instance, if we know that you have outgrown your current job and you need a change, you can find painful to face this. 

You might procrastinate taking the necessary steps--whether it involves going for additional training or education or starting a job search, because you might fear the unknown and tell yourself:

• "What will happen if I leave my secure but boring job?"

• "What if it turns out to be a bad decision?"

• "What if I don't succeed?"

And on and on until you're paralyzed into inaction.

Ultimately, you might decide to stay at your job for a variety of reasons, but you'll be making an active decision instead of getting stuck in indecision (see my article: Fear of Making a Decision: When Indecision Becomes a Decision).

It often helps to be able to talk to trusted friends and loved ones, especially if they have gone through their own life transitions successfully.

But sometimes friends and loved ones don't know what to say or, worse still, their own fear of change might cause them to advise you not to make any changes.

The other possibility is that, after a while, they might get tired of hearing you go back and forth about a decision and they won't know how to get you "unstuck" so you can overcome the obstacles that are keeping you from changing.

At that point, it would be helpful to seek help from a professional who has assisted clients to overcome the psychological blocks that keep you stuck (see my article: Overcoming Emotional Blocks in Therapy).

Some Questions to Ask Yourself

• How would I feel if I continued to be stuck in this situation for another year? another two years? or five years?

• What if I allowed my fear and mixed feelings to keep me stuck indefinitely?

• Would I look back at my life and say: If only I had made that change when I was younger, maybe I would be where I wanted to be today?

Getting Help in Therapy
There are times when you're unable to work out problems on your own.

Working with a skilled psychotherapy can help you to overcome the fear and ambivalence keeping you stuck.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist. 

I work with individual adults and couples and I have helped many clients to overcome fear of change.

To find out more about me, please visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

For a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.