Intersection of Purpose and Now

Perhaps you know the story of how caterpillars become butterflies. I have to admit, I expect Fast Company magazine’s “consultant debunking” unit to rob me of the magic of this wonderful analogy someday soon. For now, though, the story works so I’ll tell it here.

First, have you ever thought about what really happens inside that cocoon between caterpillar and butterfly? It’s not like the creature takes off its wormy green office-wear in exchange for some wild colorful party outfit. No, the transition is messier than this – much messier. Caterpillar, after weaving its cocoon, slowly dissolves into a gooey, formless mess of an ooze. Then this ooze evolves until it breaks free from the cocoon to become Butterfly. To the point: in order to become a butterfly it must stop being a caterpillar.

So many of us are caterpillars with the attitude that NO WAY are we going to become butterflies. We’re just fine. “I’m satisfied with things as they are,” we tell ourselves. Or, as business trainer and consultant Scott Simmerman so eloquently puts it, “You’re not getting me up in one of those butterfly things!”

It is impossible to achieve more, to get different results, without doing something different. We have to change our ways to become more of who we are meant to be. It means leaving the comfortable and familiar for the messy and strange. Personal change takes us through a gooey, formless mess that we would just as soon avoid in the first place.

“And why fly when I get around just fine inching along on my belly, right? Life as a caterpillar is not that bad; in fact it can be pretty good,” we say.

“Of course, I am curious to know what it is like to fly, to see the world from up there,” we allow ourselves to think privately. “I wonder what I would look like as a butterfly?”

There is a colorful butterfly in each of us. It’s who we are meant to be, doing what we are meant to do. To achieve that kind of change, though, we have to think differently first. We have to move from thinking things like “I get around just find on my belly” to “I was born to fly.” We have to take decisive action. Sometimes we have to cocoon for a while and become a messy ooze. One way or another, we have to stop being the caterpillar in order to become the butterfly. “Who I Am” and “Who I Am To Be” cannot coexist. One must die for the other to live.

What must you STOP doing in order to START to fly? Are the end results worth enough for you to spend some time as a formless goo?

I hope so.

It was last summer that my friend John came to me while we were setting up to facilitate a client group in a teambuilding adventure. “So Mark,” he says, “how can I stop chewing tobacco?”
“It sounds like you want a free coaching session,” I replied.

“Yeah,” says John. That’s not really his name, by the way. He’s not exactly innocent, but I am protecting his identity anyway.

“OK, John, since it’s you. Look into my eyes.” I hold my hand up to his forehead, kind of like a stereotypic faith-healer might do. I give a gentle shove and, “STOP IT!”, I declare.

John laughed. What followed was a bit more serious conversation of how to stop any habit, or at least replace it with something more favorable, something that takes us closer to our most important goals. Habits make us who we are. Was John ready to become someone different – As I remember it, neither of us was any too sure he had the motivation to become One who does not chew tobacco. I know my friend, John, though. Give him a little rope and he can climb a mountain.

That was then; this is now. I spoke with John this week. He reported that he had given up tobacco “for good” 29 days earlier. “That is great,” I congratulated him. I could hear certainty in his voice. He acknowledged that he will have an urge for nicotine the rest of his life.

“You know, it’s like we talked about last year,” says John. “A person has to want something bad enough, for his own reasons. I finally decided I wanted it enough to do something about it daily.”

John went on to talk about all the rewards he had identified that he would experience if he achieved his goal. He described all his research to help him document the consequences he might experience if he was not successful. He listed some of the obstacles he knew he would have to overcome to become One who does not chew tobacco. He described the solutions and specific actions he was already implementing to get past these roadblocks to his success.

I congratulated him once again. “John, you are doing it right. You got at the heart of your motivation to quit, rather than stopping at the most obvious rewards and consequences. You took potential roadblocks seriously and you are taking action each day toward your goal.

“Mark, I am going to be successful at this,” says John.

“John, you already are successful. You already are.”