Dr. Clive Williams
Navigating Change
Navigating Change …
A roadmap for solving life’s problems.
Life is change, that much we know but what many of us haven’t quite realised is that at numerous points throughout our lives, we will experience significant change.
We will in a very real sense be SEPARATED from some or all of the significant aspects of our life.
Sometimes this separation is sometimes intentional, like changing jobs or cities or getting married. Sometimes however this separation will be unexpected, possibly shocking, definitely distressing; like the discovery of an affair, the loss of a job or your health, or a serious injury or accident.
Whatever the cause of the SEPARATION from life as you knew it, you will feel lost. What used to make sense yesterday, will be confusing today. What you took for granted for years, may now be in question. These are the characteristics of significant life change.
The mudmap for navigating change spells out the key aspects of change and the various stages that follow. It helps you identify where you are in this process of change and what is required to begin to process of restoring order to your life.
Each life is unique. Each life event which separates us from our previous life is distinct yet amidst these individual life circumstances, there are common elements to every significant life change.
Key to every life experiencing significant life change will be the need to learn new skills, new ways of living. The problem which has arisen following the significant life change will be beyond your current knowledge and skill set. Whilst you may feel angry at the change and expect others to change in order to fix the problem, what I have learned from 40 years of examining change, is that you will be the key person required to change.
Clients more often than not do not want to hear this call for change. They are often angry and rightly so. They may not be responsible for instigating the change or the problems that followed. But regardless of who is responsible, personal change will be required to resolve the problem, whether you want to change or not.
This may not be the message you want to hear but if you are interested in restoring equilibrium to your life, to navigating the change which has occurred in your life, I encourage you to read futher.
A Mudmap for Living | Listen to the Trailer
The story of change
Navigating change is a story that’s been retold forever in a million different ways.
Problem Solving
The structure of the mudmap provides many case examples of people who experienced a major life problem yet came to have a life much more rewarding than their old life. Get the idea?
Transformation
Above all, in every situation where we experience a significant life change, we will be required to change, whether we want to or not. The person we used to be when this change occurred will not be sufficient to resolve this problem. We will be a different person, from necessity by the time we resolve this major life problem.
Your life as a series of significant life changes
Significant life changes occur across the life span, from leaving home to facing our own death. The mudmap identifies this process of change, the various obstacles we face, the emotional transitions we will also encounter. But most importantly, the mudmap is a set of practical skills to help with navigating real world problems and internal psychological challenges.
What is the mudmap for living?
The Mudmap provides a guide for navigating change and problem-solving.
My book ‘A Mudmap for Living’ is a guide to navigating life through significant change. Whether the change is intentional or unwanted, the Mudmap outlines the process of change, the various stages and what is required at each stage to progress from problem to resolution.
The book contains many case examples of ordinary people navigating change, from the arrival of their first child, the demise of a relationship or the loss of health or financial security. Whilst all these life changes look different and involve different challenges, underneath, such diverse life changes require a core set of new behaviours, new skills. My book ‘A Mudmap for Living’ outlines these new skills and how we might begin to acquire them.
All of us will at various times throughout our life, experience significant life changes. We will find ourselves lost and overwhelmed. Our usual ways of living and coping won’t suffice. My aim is to pass on to everyone an insight into how change occurs and what is required to navigate this unknown territory and move ourselves closer to problem resolution.
Hear About new content, books, and podcast episodes.
Why this book?
To help individuals to become more alive
For the past 40 years, I’ve sat in small rooms with people experiencing turmoil and distress. The content of my daily work is helping people navigate significant life changes.
While every person’s story is unique, over the years however I have been struck by the underlying similarities of how change occurs. What I’ve recognised is that, despite whatever turmoil is being experienced, significant life change is essentially a SEPARATION. All of us, at numerous times in our lives will be separated from one or more or all significant aspects of our life.
Whether this is our first time leaving home, our first full time job, getting married or divorced, SEPARATION is a recurring event in our lives. Each separation throws us into the unknown, into grief and fear. Each separation finds us in foreign situations with people we don’t know, with challenges we don’t know how to address. Each separation leaves us feeling lost as to what to do.
And yet the outcome of all change is new life.
The gift of sitting with people experiencing significant life change is that I have also seen these same sad, lost people create new life chapters, move from turmoil to order, from distress to achievement. It is my aim to share this change compass with you.
dr clive williams
A psychologist with 40 years of experience with a focus on navigating change and problem solving
Navigating change
“There is a mudmap for life, to guide us when there are changes we don’t know how to address, to give direction when we are lost.”
