As a product manager at an executive education company I marketed a course on change implementation and management. I won’t bore you with the all the stats I learned when researching this topic, but I will tell you that very rarely is change successfully implemented in the professional environment.
Lately we’ve gone through some personal changes. Some are routine, and others that we are experiencing are not so routine. That got me thinking, there just might be a blog post in this change!
Our snowbirds migrated back north for the summer. This means we will settle into our summer routine here in Florida. We’ll have a little less traffic on the roads, shorter wait times at restaurants, get home projects completed, and more nights eating in at home. We sure miss them when their gone, but we get to look forward to all the new things we can do in the fall and winter with them when the “season” starts again here on the Gulf Coast.
Over the past few years we have said a lot of final goodbyes that changed our familial status. I lost my last grandparent and both my in-laws. Does that mean I am no longer a granddaughter or daughter-in-law? I don’t know the answer to that. However, we are also preparing to say hello as one of my husband’s kids makes us grandparents for the first time. We are experiencing the circle of life in real life, not just by watching The Lion King. The “goodbyes” were sad, but this “hello” is so exciting and full of hope!
There is constant change at Disney. 99% of it is great – we love new lands and restaurants. Over the past few years they have added a new Fantasyland to Magic Kingdom and Pandora to Animal Kingdom. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Toy Story Land in two months and Star Wars Land next summer at Hollywood Studios. Of course, this means we do lose some favorite rides and restaurants to make room for the new lands, but overall it pays off tenfold. For example, we were so sad to see one of our favorite coffee shops close in Hollywood Studios, but now it is perhaps our #1 go-to location on property – the Baseline Tap House, and the new Seven Dwarfs mine ride in Magic Kingdom is amazing! As you can see from the pictures below we love these changes!
One lesson I learned from my research at work was change is only successful if everyone understands why the change is happening. Sure, grief is hard, but I understand why we lose loved ones. It is sad to see favorite locations close, but how exciting it can be when new businesses open in their place – those new businesses may become favorites. It gets a little quieter here when the snowbirds are gone, but then we get to do all the DIY home projects we’ve been putting off. Well, that one might not be a great trade-off, but I’ll paint a few walls and scrub some floors without too much grumbling this summer knowing we are rewarded with six months off of DIY work to enjoy winter in Florida.
While I was Wandering 