Why Big Life Changes Attract More Change

For a lot of people, the end of summer is a time of concentrated change. Your kid leaves for college, maybe you decide to ramp up a job search. It feels to you like an enormous emotional upheaval, but may look invisible to everyone else. At that moment, something else kicks off. You start to invite in other changes, some of them great, and some that seem just a little out of control. Let’s talk about it.

Why Big Changes Attract More Change

Big internal changes tend to attract more change, and there’s a reason for it. When you go through something major, you feel different, and you want visible proof of that change. So you do something tangible that you and everyone else can see – you initiate additive changes in response to the big one. Maybe you wallpaper a hallway or cut off a mean friend. You change your hair. Before I go on a long trip, I make note of construction projects in my neighborhood, hoping that they will make incredible progress by the time I’m home. I want external changes to keep up with my internal shifts.

In Seattle there’s a running group called the Plod Squad, for slow runners who want community over competition. My hunch is that a lot of people join in response to some primary but invisible change. They need to process it through their bodies.

This category of change is benign and often overdue. The wallpaper makes you really happy. You feel a little lighter without that difficult relationship. You’re moving your body, finally. These types of visible changes are generative and place a vote for your well-being.

To Hell With It

Then there’s a second category of additive change, and this one is less about visibility and more about release. I call this category, “to hell with it.” You get laid off or have to make major accommodations to care for a parent, and something else loosens. It’s like you suddenly can’t control what you’re used to controlling. It feels like you’ve been cast adrift and nothing makes sense anymore. Dwelling here is uncomfortable and you might feel the urge to DO something, like, right now.

Instead of getting the weird lamp you saw at the thrift store, you throw up your hands and go on a hunt for what else you can release. You approach this category with reckless abandon tinged with resentment. You start to notice your caretaking of everyone around you, or the things you wanted that you always talked yourself out of because they were too expensive or impractical.

This is how people end up with sports cars and neon orange kitchen walls. The spirit of the change is good: you stop optimizing for the approval of others and place a big vote for yourself. But the actions may not be totally thought out. Rage-quitting a job or buying a motorcycle, for example. You still accomplish the goal of getting acknowledgment for the primary change you’re going through, but the doing feels a little panicked. Instead of celebrating, your friends might gently ask if you’re ok.

What You’re Actually Looking For

That acknowledgement piece is key. You may take on a lot of these additive changes without talking to anyone. You just show up one day with new hair or a taiko drum. So even though you create a visible change, your primary internal shift still feels unwitnessed. You scratch at it but ultimately it pales in comparison to menopause or empty nesting or a sick family member.

Some people have trouble taking action on their own behalf, but they are great at analyzing what they’re going through. So they assemble friends and discuss the primary change at length. That does help, but then they go home and everything still looks the same. So some aspect of the big change is witnessed, but it still doesn’t feel tangible. Plus, you’re describing where you are at one particular moment – no one can truly appreciate the vastness of what you’re going through and what it means.

The acknowledgement you seek isn’t really about the change, it’s about being seen. And that’s messy, especially when you haven’t yet landed on the other side of this transformation. Getting a new sofa is a lot easier.

How to Choose What Your Change Attracts

Change will keep being magnetic, because change attracts change. But you do have some say over what gets pulled in. So before you cut your own bangs in the bathroom at 11pm, ask yourself: is what I’m about to do something my closest friends would celebrate? Not the friends who blindly support everything, but the ones who aren’t afraid to say, “this doesn’t sound like you.”

You don’t need their permission to act, but they can be a useful internal proxy for whether the change will move you toward something joyful or away from something painful. If some part of you feels hesitant about telling a friend what you’re about to do, check back in with yourself. It might be part of the “to hell with it” category of additive changes. Those benefit from a night of sleep before you act.

Useful changes are visible and joyful. They invite community and enhance your health. And importantly, they help you build the new version of you who will emerge from the other side of this big primary change. You might be on the roller coaster of this big change every day, but you’re also building the infrastructure for what will come next .

Which Category are You in?

Change is a magnet, and when you go through something huge, it can be hard to fully control what else it draws in. What else are you pulling in?

You have agency here. If you’re in the middle of a big transition, figure out which additive changes are in the “to hell with it” category, and which ones are in the “this would make me really happy” category.

Burn the map. Build what fits.