We tend to mythologize big change.
We call it a “leap of faith.” We describe it with metaphors of cliffs and freefalls. We celebrate those who’ve done it as if they’ve wrestled monsters and survived. To back that up, evolutionary psychologists, therapists, and many other scientists, as well as practitioners, reiterate the messages - “People are naturally afraid of change” and “Our brain is designed to protect us from the unknown”.
And so, understandably, many of us sit on the edge, not taking any leaps, sometimes frozen - not because we don’t want to leap or cannot do it, but because we believe we’re supposed to be terrified first.
Wouldn’t it be reckless to turn 180 without feeling the fear of change?
But what if we’ve misunderstood the leap all along?
❝What if taking the leap is not a heroic act of overcoming fear - but a natural human skill we can learn to practice?❞
Recent psychological and behavioural research suggests that change isn't inherently paralyzing. What is paralyzing is how we frame it - how we interpret uncertainty, risk, and identity shifts! We’ve been conditioned to believe that change should involve struggle, doubt, and sacrifice. And if we don’t feel that way, we assume we’re doing something wrong.
Let me share a personal story that shaped how I see change, long before we started calling it “agility” or “change management.”
I’ve changed countries five times, living across Europe. It started when I was 13. From Bulgaria, I moved to Portugal, then Hungary, back to Bulgaria, then the UK, France, back to the UK and eventually - making a full circle, landing on homeland again. In the meantime I also changed three drastically different career paths too. I began studying Engineering, then moved to Finance and Management, and subsequently transitioned to Psychology. All those moves were expected to be permanent, which made the changes mean something significant.
Each transition demanded more than logistics - it required emotional rewiring. At the beginning I had to adjust to new school systems, forge friendships in unfamiliar social ecosystems, decode shifting cultural norms, and switch between languages, among other things. The sort of adaptability needed was not talked about in terms of skills. It was quietly accepted as a "must-do" survival mode for anyone who ended up in shifting circumstances. Afterwards, the adjustments were to new work fields, structures, authority dynamics, career ladders, and more.
Throught it all, the real shifts were above all internal. Each environment demanded a reinvention of self:
Who am I in this context? What behaviours are rewarded here? What does belonging mean now?
It wasn’t just about learning new things - it was about unlearning old ones, detaching and re-attaching. Along the way, I developed capabilities no one taught explicitly: resilience, emotional intelligence, perspective-shifting, social decoding, and self-trust, among others.
And, as nice as they sound on paper, they are linked to behaviours that don't always look pretty in practice. Resilience, for example, has shown up as stubbornness many times. Self-trust may have looked as arrogance. Social decoding at first took the shape of passive observation.
The growth and development of valuable skills certainly didn't come with bells and whistles. In fact, while going at it, I didn’t know these were valuable capabilities in the first place. For years, I noticed that people like me - people who had moved often, lived between cultures, changed environments - weren’t seen as particularly skilled. We were anomalies. The dominant social narratives favoured permanence: long-term jobs, deep roots, enduring friendships, a single path. Change was seen as disruption. Letting go? Following your heart? Starting over? Those were framed as something you only did if you had to, otherwise they were surely recklessness.
Today, in 2025, we’re finally catching up. Research from scholars like David Thomas and Kerr Inkson has shown that global mobility and cross-cultural adaptation build what they call “cultural intelligence” - the ability to function effectively in different environments. Studies in the International Journal of Intercultural Relations and Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology show that people who’ve lived in multiple countries score higher on tolerance for ambiguity, creative problem-solving, and emotional resilience - all core components of change agility. In short: the skills I was building weren’t strange. They were just early. And now, as change becomes non-negotiable, and stability is redefined, we’re starting to realize something that many of us lived intuitively for decades:
Change isn’t the opposite of a healthy life - it’s the foundation of a resilient one. One where self-awareness and honest reflection are fundamental practices. More importantly, for those of you who say: "I don't like change much" or "I know myself, I am trying to postpone change as much as possible" - fear not! It's not that you don't like change or can't change. You've done it successfully many times. But that we all fear the deviation from ideas on how things should be.
Our fear of change isn't biological - it's predominantly cultural! In fact, several fields of psychological research suggest that change doesn't need to be traumatizing at all.
In his foundational work on Hope Theory, psychologist Rick Snyder explains that hope isn’t just emotion - it’s cognitive. And people are more likely to take bold steps when they can see multiple pathways forward and believe in their ability to pursue them.
Hope is built on two key pillars:
So, when we fear change, what we’re often experiencing isn’t paralyzing fear - it’s a lack of pathways. We’re not stuck because the leap is too big. We’re stuck because we haven’t practiced creating routes toward it.
Cognitive psychologist Amos Tversky once said, “We prefer the predictable error to the unpredictable truth.” We fear the unknown not because it's unknowable, but because it's not yet patterned.
From prospect theory to modern risk intelligence research, we now know that our perception of risk is highly elastic. It changes with exposure. The more we simulate and interact with the unknown, even in small doses, the less overwhelming it becomes.
Think of it like this: Courage isn’t the absence of fear. It’s the normalization of uncertainty and creating building blocks to step on next.
According to research on narrative identity (McAdams, 1993), major life transitions are not departures from the self but deepening stories of who we already are becoming.
In other words, in change we learn that the self isn't one singular entity. It is a multi-voiced narrative, shaped by the contexts we are in and by our personal decisions on who we want to be. This is why some people tend to thrive in uncertainty - they don’t see change as betrayal of their past, but as the next coherent chapter of their inner storyline. This is not an ability that one unlocks as they are born, but rather - a necessary understanding that comes through experiences and enriches one's life.
When your leap is tethered to identity - not escaping your past, but fulfilling your purpose - it doesn’t feel like a rupture. It feels like evolution.
In the world of talking therapy practices and particularly through the lens of constructivist identity theory, our sense of coherence matters more than the actual change itself! When we reframe disruption as evolution - not failure - we can all shift from fear to curiosity.
Let’s also debunk the idea that boldness is something you're born with.
From Bandura’s Social Learning Theory to Carol Dweck’s work on growth mindset, we know that behaviour change can be taught and developed, including taking initiative, navigating uncertainty, and making bold decisions. In a longitudinal study published in Journal of Youth and Adolescence, researchers found that agency and goal-pursuit increased with repeated exposure to challenges. People became more comfortable leaping because they practiced leaping. Confidence was a byproduct, not a prerequisite.
In short: you don’t need to wait to “feel ready.” You need to start practicing small versions of the big thing.
Studies from social psychology show that supportive environments, modelling behaviour, and shared accountability radically increase the likelihood of making and sustaining change.
So instead of asking, “Do I have the courage?” ask:
“Have I built the community that makes this leap feel possible?”
Let’s redefine what it means to take a leap:
- A practiced mindset, not a singular act.
- A strategic shift, not a chaotic break
- A socially supported journey, not a solo battle
- A way of deepening our identity - not abandoning it
If you’re standing on the edge of something - career change, creative pivot, leadership move - try these instead of forcing a leap:
✅ Write your “why now” story rooted in your values and imgaine thw you that takes the leap
✅ Break the leap into 3-to-5 micro-actions
✅ Build a 2-person “leap circle” to normalize the journey. Indentify one person that will act as a support mechanism and will not only help you take your micro-steps but will also be someone who takes a leap towards their own, meaningful, new direction.
Love and respect,
Valentina Dolmova and the ILC Team