How to Navigate Change: The Change Matrix
In 2020, the pandemic “created uncertainty in nearly every aspect of daily life” from our health to our relationships to our finances. Navigating such a high degree of uncertainty became a hardship, in and of itself. Uncertainty is not only stressful, it can paralyze us and prevent us from taking action.
As we move further from the peak of the pandemic, uncertainty will continue to plague us. Complex challenges such as climate change and wealth inequality are adding to a growing landscape of uncertainties that impact our lives in ways that are difficult to predict. However, planning for the future can reduce our stress, stave off depression and anxiety, and even reduce our risk of dying. It can also help us make better decisions and achieve our goals when we foster that expectation.
So, how do we get a grip on change?
The Change Matrix
The Change Matrix is a personal foresight model designed to help you explore a how given change might impact your life. The goal of this model is to help you reduce your sense of uncertainty and anxiety, grasp how your future might change, and plan accordingly. Think of it as a two-dimensional pros and cons list.
When using this model, the x-axis remains constant; “my life improves” versus “my life worsens.” The y-axis represents a given change and should be labeled with the two ends of the spectrum of that change. For instance, “the wealth gap grows” versus “the wealth gap shrinks” or “I keep my job” versus “I lose my job.”
The change can be systemic or personal, acute/niche or widespread, and simple or complex. You can consider any time horizon; change that will take place soon or decades in the future.
You may want to consider the following factors (amongst others) and prioritize them in whatever order suits you best:
- Relationships: family, friends, and any other relationships that may be of importance to you.
- Health: any form of health including physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, etc.
- Work: factors that contribute to society including jobs, careers, volunteer work, etc.
- Finances: how you manage and use money and assets.
- Lifestyle: how you live including identity, hobbies, interactions, etc.
There is room to account for a wide range of values, circumstances, and interpretations. You can be as rigorous and detailed in the scenarios as you want to be.
Once you fill all four quadrants, you’ll have a set of four personal scenarios. Depending on how you position the change, the scenarios will indicate a high-level action you want to take: achieve, contribute, prevent, and improve.
- Achieve (top right quadrant): What actions can you take to create this scenario for yourself and for society?
- Contribute (bottom right quadrant): What actions can you take to improve society given your fortunate position?
- Prevent (bottom left quadrant): What actions can you take to mitigate or prevent this scenario for yourself and others?
- Improve (top left quadrant): What actions can you take to improve your outcomes in a favorable context?
Benefits
The Change Matrix is simple, convenient, intuitive, and inclusive. It also has two key benefits:
- It reduces stress by helping you engage in “proactive coping” i.e. future-oriented thinking, in which you anticipate and make plans for how to handle potential hardships.
- It helps you avoid binary thinking and challenges you to think about how you might thrive during ‘negative’ change and struggle during ‘positive’ change. For example, some people thrived during lockdown while many others didn’t.
Variations
There are several variations of this model. Though the Change Matrix was specifically created with individuals in mind, it can be used to assess how a given change will impact a family, community, or organization by replacing the values on the x-axis with “family +/-”, “community +/-”, and “organization +/-.”
If you want to challenge yourself, you might explore how a given change might impact you now versus the future.
Examples
Here are some examples completed by people who were considering how a change might impact their lives.
Air Pollution
In 2023, Canada was ravaged by wildfires. Air pollution will have an increasing impact on our lives in the absence of meaningful action on climate change. This matrix was completed by a Toronto resident and homeowner who considered how air pollution might change their life. This is an example of a systemic issue.
Housing
Housing is a pressing and significant concern for many people for various reasons. This matrix was completed by an individual who considered remaining in a multi-generational living situation versus a single-family home, with the acknowledgment that homeownership may not be an option. This is an example of a personal decision in the context of a systemic issue, rather than two ends of a spectrum of a systemic issue.
Employment
Economic conditions are creating a strain for many people as inflation rises and organizations cut jobs. The following matrix was completed by an individual seeking employment, exploring whether the job market will improve or worsen in the next year.
Conclusion
As the world continues to evolve at a rapid pace, coping with uncertainty is vital to societal health and our collective social-economic and political outcomes. The Change Matrix is a personal foresight method that allows you to explore scenarios of how change, personal or systemic, might impact your life. It is simple, convenient, intuitive, and inclusive — design parameters that may be useful when creating other personal foresight methods. By conscientiously exploring and planning for our individual futures, we can build better collective futures, one change at a time.
Read the full essay on the Change Matrix here.
