Photo by George Gastin; accessed through Wikimedia Commons
Think about a time when you had a setback while working toward a financial goal.
We’ve all experienced it before. You’re plugging away, feeling pretty good about your progress, and then poof! Instant relapse. You are flooded by emotions that drag you down and refuse to let you get back on track.
Think about what you say to yourself (that is, your “self-talk”) at these times. Do you beat yourself up mentally, thinking “I’m a failure; I’m a loser; I’m no good?” Now think about the consequences of those thoughts. If you beat yourself up, does that ultimately make you more task-focused and persistent or less?
Chances are good that the negative self-talk makes you less determined and less enthusiastic about working toward your money goal again.
We have a popular expression in our culture that if we make a mistake on a project, we are “back at square one.” Prochaska, Norcross, and DiClemente, the researchers who developed the theory of the stages of change, offer a competing model for interpreting setbacks. They suggest that we think about change as an upward spiral.
Each time you circle through a change process, you end up one level higher on the spiral. Although it may feel like you are back at square one, you are actually in a more elevated spot from which you can see things more clearly. At this higher perch, you are equipped with wisdom, experience, and life lessons that you didn’t have when you were positioned on the level below.
Using this new image, we can replace “Now I’m back at square one” with a more hopeful expression: “Good setback, Self! You can see a lot better from this new level of the upward spiral!”
What is your favorite change metaphor? Upward spiral? A caterpillar turning into a butterfly? A flower opening up? Send your thoughts!
5 Responses to “Perhaps I’ll Take the Elevator”
Hmmm–how about we start saying, “At level 2, or 3, or 4.” Or maybe, the old addage, two steps forward, one step back (or something like that).
How about…”this too, shall pass”?
My favorite change metaphor is maybe a stream or a babbling brook. One of those wise, ancient philosophers said “You never step into the same river twice,” because the river bed is forever being changed by the water that flows through it. I like to think that we are forever being changed by our day-to-day experiences. So even if a given change effort didn’t work at one point in our lives, it may work at another point becuase we are a new person capable of handling new things. Profound, is it not?
Oh interesting blog…., one thing I can think of now is how everyone found out the story about the woman who created Spanx, and how she just made the list of the world’s billionaires.
When Sara Blakely was growing up, her father used to ask her everyday, “what did you fail at today?” When Sara told her father what she stunk at, it made her father proud.
It’s just an interesting thought that perpetual failure is such a big part of success.
You make some good suggestions about change metaphors–spring seems like the right time to think about caterpillars turning into butterflies or flowers opening up. How about a money tree: As the buds unfold into leaves, the leaves end up being $100 bills?
Leave a Reply