“Change is good. Let’s all hold hands and celebrate change.” —all of the Internets right around the start of a new year.

Right around the start of a new year, the Internets are abuzz with blogs about change. Myriad blogs, news articles, and social media statuses extoll the virtues of change and how to embrace it. For companies, change is a challenge to the status quo, and even good change—like landing a new client—often comes with its own set of challenges. What does the client want? How do you keep him happy? If I tell him I’m a 49ers fan, will he find someone else?

In our line of work, we work a lot with marketing companies, and I’ve seen how much punishment some of them go through as the economy pendulum swings back and forth. If there’s anything I’ve learned from them, it’s how to roll with the punches, rather than buckling under the pressure. This may seem like business 101, yet for many businesses, change-inducing events often seem unexpected and disruptive. Losing a major client, falling victim to hackers, or getting an unpleasant letter from the IRS can throw a lot of wrenches into a plan. So, how does a business prepare itself for the seemingly unpredictable, yet expected, changes that will come in 2016?

Plan for Getting Rid of Ghosts: Check

What if the third pig only relied on the second pig’s safety revisions?

To be at your best when change happens, you must be prepared mentally. Above all, this means truly accepting that it is inevitable. “Change is the only constant,” a quote often misattributed to Greek philosopher Heraclitus, is true wisdom here. Humans tend to think that when things are going well, they’ll continue at a similar or better pace (though, surprisingly, pessimists tends to think better of the future than optimists). In reality, the past shows us that unexpected change happens more often than we think. A common pattern in businesses is that a crisis occurs, the fire is put out, a lesson is learned, and, hopefully, measures are put into place to prevent the same problem from occurring in the future. This is when people are most motivated to prevent the crisis from happening again, and the most action takes place. In time, the memory fades, reliance on the new preventative measures increases, and people become less vigilant, more convinced that the present is safe. At least, that’s what most of Wall Street thought in the mid-2000s.

Expect that change will come and, when it does, you’ll be more mentally prepared for it. Create contingency plans for unexpected events. Do you have a clear course of action for the next recession? Are you prepared to replace a member of your team if something comes up? If your office becomes haunted, who are you going to call? Answer: Ghostbusters, of course.

A Common Mistake among Website Developers and Designers

Many of our clients are website design companies, and over the years I’ve noticed a common problem: a dependency on one or two key clients. The team gains expertise in that client’s needs, sometimes learning skills that can’t be transferred to other clients, and is increasingly dependent on that client as a source of revenue. That’s a scary proposition, especially if the client ever realizes just how much leverage he can have, demanding increasingly short deadlines, more efficient work, and lower costs. Should that client decide to pull the plug one day, that team is in for a shock. That’s not good change, but how do you prepare for this, especially if you think everything is peachy?

Putting aside for a moment that there are almost always signs to which you simply haven’t paid attention, the real key is to not get into this situation in the first place. That doesn’t mean not taking on the client; it means diversifying. Clients come and go—be it the end of a project, a falling out, or simply less need for your service—and such change needs to be accounted for. Customer acquisition must continue to ensure diversification of your business’s revenue stream so that losing a big client no longer has the same negative impact. Landing a big client typically leads to a major shifting of resources to service the new account, and often this comes with a sense of complacency. Why market and look for more clients when all your time is going into this one big account? Complacency leads to a dependency on the status quo and a dulling of skills that help you cope with change. Continue marketing, and accept that part of the challenge of acquiring a big account means having to expand enough to be able to continue landing new projects.

Part 2: Uh, I guess I have two more suggestions.

Still with me? Fun fact: You beat the odds. A study done for Slate Magazine showed half of a given article’s readers don’t reach the half-way point.

“Relax, You’ll Live Longer”

Arnold said it best in Total Recall. You have to learn to take things in stride and hold your emotions in check. Some people deal with change better than others (link not safe for work). The emotional rollercoaster is real for some of us (I can attest to how challenging it is to smooth those mountains and valleys into rolling hills), and rarely does it help the situation. Change tends to induce strong emotions, be they versions of fear or excitement. Each of these can be a problem if left unchecked, as strong emotions cloud judgment and decision making. That’s not the mental state you want to be in.

Adopting a more solid mental state is something that can be trained on a daily basis. Each day brings with it situational triggers, be they good or bad. Whether it’s traffic-induced roadrage or seeing a stock trading much higher than expected, these are opportunities to check your emotions and keep things in perspective. You simply don’t have a crystal ball to predict the future, so don’t allow anticipation of a possible future override rational thought. After all, those stocks might go down, and that guy who cut you off might get pulled over (wishful thinking, but still). Deal with the moment without imposing a possible future on it and you’ll find that over time your emotional capacity for dealing with the unexpected, and change in particular, will strengthen.

Deadliest Zone for Small Businesses: The Comfort Zone

The more times you experience something, the more you get used to it, and the same goes for change as a whole. The more change you go through, the less expectation you have for the status quo to remain unchallenged; whereas, the longer you go without change, the tougher it is to be mentally prepared for it.

Challenge your comfort zone on a regular basis. Our comfort is complacency, and doing things we’re not used to brings about an uncertainty, an unknown. Humans are programmed to fear the unknown, so it’s no wonder change can incite fear—we don’t know what things will look like on the other side.

Systematically disrupting one’s own comfort zone is key to preparing for unexpected change. Consider it conditioning your mental reflexes.

• Want to get quicker on your feet when in tough client meetings? Take part in speaking engagements at your local chamber of commerce (which can often have spirited Q&A sessions afterward).
• Need to know how to better handle crisis situations when there’s more work than resources available? Try volunteering for a non-profit; such organizations have to make do with limited resources on a daily basis, and yet many still have great success thanks to efficient resource management.
• Want to create a better team environment? Open yourself up to criticism to better understand what you need to change first. An organization is only as loyal as its leadership is to its team.

The Takeaway: Change Happens, Prepare for It

If there’s anything I hope you take away from all of this, it’s that while yes, change does happens and we should embrace it, you really don’t have a choice. So often major setbacks occur and businesses seem completely unprepared for them. Yet, much of this stems from upper management not being honest with itself about the fact that major disruptions will come, and they have to be expected. I know we’ve had our fair share, and I hope some of the lessons we’ve learned can help other businesses better prepare for major disruptions. Expect setbacks, roll with the punches, know it’s all part of the process, and create enough opportunities to offset the negative changes.

Marek runs the day-to-day at Words by a Pro. When not working, he goes out of his mind and goes back to work.