Early in my career, I was in the middle of a multi-billion-dollar acquisition.
That kind of change doesn't ask your opinion before it rearranges your job, your team, and your sense of where you stand.
I was frustrated. I was scared.
If I'm honest, I was heading toward bitter.
A mentor of mine noticed. She didn't tell me to calm down or push through.
She gave me a choice.
No pep talk. A real choice.
I could let this experience make me bitter, or I could let it make me better.
Both were open to me.
Only one was going to serve me.
The Choice Nobody Tells You You're Making
The advice was simple.
The reminder underneath it hit harder: I was already choosing, whether I noticed or not.
Staying frustrated was a choice.
So was staying closed off, and staying inside a story about what was being done to me.
None of it felt like a choice, because it was the easiest place to land.
Change you didn't ask for works this way for most of us. The bitter path takes no decision.
You just keep doing what you're doing.
The better path takes a deliberate choice.
You'll make it more than once.
Since the last change you didn't ask for, which path have you been on?
Bitter Is the Default. Better Is a Decision.
Bitter looks like checking out.
It looks like holding onto resentment about a decision you had no part in, and letting that resentment shape how you show up for months after the decision is done.
It's understandable.
It's also expensive, and the person carrying it pays most of the cost.
Better leaves room for the hurt.
You can admit the change stung and caught you off guard.
Then you take what the experience is handing you, wanted or not, and ask what it's teaching you about how you want to lead, adapt, or show up next time.
That's the whole shift.
Positivity isn't the goal. Direction is.
Making the Choice When It's Hard to See
This aligns closely with what we teach in the Change Enthusiasm® framework: Signal, Opportunity, Choice.
The frustration is the Signal.
Understanding what it's pointing to is the Opportunity.
Bitter or better is the Choice, made concrete.
You don't make it once and move on.
I've had to make it more than once since that acquisition, and I'll have to make it again.
Getting it right straight away matters less than noticing the choice exists at all.
Where to Go from Here
If you're in this moment right now, the Change Enthusiasm® book walks through it in more depth, and the first chapter is free to download.
If you're leading a team through something bigger than one moment, that's the work we do inside the Change Growth Accelerator™.
