The Beast Awakens

We can think about change as a little monster in our head who overpowers our desires to stay with the status quo. Most of the time, our change monster is asleep.  It is in hibernation when it isn’t needed but wakes up when we start to realize that we need some change.


The Beast Awakens

Monsters are scary so we try to keep our change monster at bay most of the time, not wanting to wake it up.   Or often if it starts to stir we stop what we are doing so that it quiets itself and goes back to sleep.  When our change beasts do wake up, we often try to build walls around them to try to keep the monster contained.


The Beast Fights Back
But the monster doesn’t like being contained and will always try to break those walls down or go around them or even dig underneath them.  If none of that works, the monster can hurl things over the wall trying to disrupt our lives.


We Lock up the Beast
When our change monsters do this, we often try to build bigger walls or add new walls outside the old walls.  Containment is the key.  Sometimes, we can keep the monster contained for a very long time without ever achieving any of our change.


The Beast Escapes
But the monster feeds on our need to change and grows bigger the greater that need gets.  If the monster gets big enough, it breaks through our walls and drives us to change.  We know that when the monster shows up when we need to do something.


The Beast Attacks
Our beast stands over us with a mean face and makes sure that are focusing on our change process.   It romps up and down, banging its feet against our brain.  It growls and roars when we turn away from our task.  All of this is so that we focus on our change task.


We Befriend the Beast
And, after a while, we have made progress on our change, and the monster calms down a bit.  We realize that the monster isn’t so scary anymore – we’ve grown accustomed to it.  That big ugly face is now kind of sweet.  The actions that the beast had to scare us to do before have become habit or routine, and we do them willingly.


The Beast Rests
The monster doesn’t need to show up to scare us as much anymore – and starts to shrink back down to being small.  Finally, when our change has become the status quo, the monster goes back to sleep, and we go on peacefully with our lives trying not to wake up the sleeping beast.