Butterflies Walking

Getting better at the old way will not teach you the next way.

I was taking my dogs for a walk when I saw a butterfly in the road. It had huge, beautiful wings, and it was walking along the pavement.

It was not very good at it.

I wondered if it was injured and could not fly. I moved closer, and it flew away. Then it came back and began walking again.

I could not stop thinking about how much it reminded me of my students. Here was something with the capacity to fly, struggling to walk. The very wings that gave it that capacity made walking awkward.

Are you trying to walk harder?

You may be doing something similar. You hustle, push, and become more exhausted, but you are not getting where you want to go.

You try to fit in with people doing what you have always done. You hide what you want. You tell yourself you need to get better at the familiar thing before you attempt the new thing.

But getting better at walking does not teach a butterfly to fly.

You can become the perfect walker and still have no practice with flying. If what you want requires a different way of thinking and acting, more work on the old way may not be the preparation you imagine.

At some point, you have to try the new thing.

Flying introduces the possibility of falling

There is a reason you may want to stay on the ground. Flying is unfamiliar, and being in the air introduces the possibility of falling.

You may want someone to explain every step first. You may say you are not ready or that you need to become more accomplished at what you already know.

I want you to notice whether that explanation makes sense. Are you learning the skill you want, or delaying it by becoming even better at a different skill?

The only way to get better at flying is to fly. You may not do it well in the beginning. That is part of becoming a beginner.

Your willingness to experience failure matters more than having a perfect plan that guarantees you will never fall.

Do not hide your wings

Think about a butterfly trying to walk among caterpillars while pretending its wings are not there.

That is what hiding can look like. You know you want something bigger, but you try not to let anyone see it. You keep making yourself fit the old picture.

I remember being in a car with friends while I was at Santa Clara University. We were heading to Utah, and I talked about how excited I was for what our lives could become. I could feel the bigness of it.

They did not share that feeling. I thought they saw me as strange, and afterward I began toning myself down.

I tried to hide the image I had for my life. It was painful and awkward. I felt out of place, as though I were walking when I should have been flying.

Look beyond what is directly in front of you

A butterfly on the ground has a very different view from one in the air. I want you to use that image when you consider your own perspective.

Are you looking only at the past or the immediate future? Are you limiting your decisions to what is right in front of you?

Consider the larger picture. What do you want your life to become? What opportunities can you imagine when you stop requiring the future to look like the past?

You may still see the risk of falling. You can also see what makes taking that risk worthwhile.

Working only within the old view can keep you from considering the possibility that is asking you to change.

The skills that got you here may not be the next skills

I had a conversation with my friend Chris about a transition in her business. She had developed skills, taught in a particular way, and created success.

Those things had brought her to that point. But doing them even better was not necessarily what the next stage required.

I told her she was already an excellent caterpillar in that area. Now she had to learn to fly.

That can be difficult because you have earned confidence and approval in the familiar work. You are good at it. People respond to it. You know how to succeed there.

Transformation may ask you to stop relying on that familiarity and become a beginner again.

You cannot unknow the possibility

My friend compared the experience to taking the red pill in The Matrix. Once you have seen something, you cannot simply return to not knowing it.

The butterfly cannot become the caterpillar again because flying feels uncomfortable.

That is part of what makes a transition challenging. The old way may no longer fit, while the new way has not become comfortable yet.

You can spend a lot of energy trying to squeeze back into the identity that felt safe. Or you can recognize that you have outgrown it and begin practicing what comes next.

The discomfort does not mean you should never have changed. It may mean you are in the process of changing.

Recognize your reasons for staying on the ground

You may say the dream is not realistic. You may say success does not matter to you, that you have more important things to do, or that the opportunity has passed.

Look at those explanations honestly. Are they what you believe, or are they ways of avoiding a possibility that scares you?

Notice how the thoughts make you feel and what actions they drive. If they keep you walking while you continue longing to fly, look at the result that Model is creating.

You do not have to use awkwardness in your current life as evidence that you are unworthy. You may be using a strategy you have outgrown.

Use falling to learn

In the concept of antifragility, challenges and failed attempts can become ways of developing strength.

You can bring that approach here. A first attempt at flying may not go well. It can still teach you something that perfecting your walk never would.

Instead of insisting you must already know how, become willing to practice. You can learn through the attempts, including the ones that feel awkward.

That asks you to release the identity of being the person who is already excellent and allow the experience of being new.

It is not always an incremental improvement to the old strategy. Sometimes it is a different strategy altogether.

Decide whether you are ready to transform

Ask yourself whether your current way of doing things has taken you as far as it can. Are you trying to get a new result by repeating the same approach more intensely?

Are you willing to give up the comfort of your current success to learn something that could take you to the next level?

Look at the image of that butterfly walking with its enormous wings. Consider where it describes you.

You do not need to become better at hiding your wings. You can begin learning how to use them.

That is what I am committed to in my life, and what I want to encourage in yours: becoming willing to transform, become a beginner, and keep practicing the next way.