Get the Best Meta Skill Ever (besides reading)

For the next five weeks, we’re going to be learning the meta skill of navigating change using Martha Beck’s Change Cycle model. Meta skills are skills which apply to broad categories of things. So, for example, if you knew how to make amazing guacamole, that’s a skill. If you decided you wanted to make a seven layer dip instead, but have never done so, you could use your meta skills of reading, researching, and learning in order to find the best recipe. Learning how to change is one of the most important meta skills we can develop. We’ve heard the quote, “the only thing that is constant is change.” And yet, often we resist it, because it can be scary to walk into the unknown. While this meta skill can’t save you from the fear of the unknown, it can help you understand that even the unknown is going to have a pattern.

Last week I introduced the idea of the change cycle and the stagnant pond. If you picked an area you were avoiding, this week’s post is going to help you identify where you are. If you’re just joining in, you can think of any change you’re facing that you’re a little bit afraid of for the purposes of this article. Let’s take a look at the image from last week:

The pretty blue portion is Martha’s Change Cycle. (For info on the pond, read this.) This week we’re going to do an overview, and go into more detail on each square over the next four weeks.

Martha’s model consists of four squares, beginning with Death & Rebirth. In Martha’s model, she has this square triggered by catalytic event – something that changes you permanently. I’ve left this out of my modified model for the purpose of this series because I want to talk about smaller, everyday changes, where catalytic events are not always easy to identify.  Each square is easy to understand:

Death & Rebirth: The change has happened. You realize you no longer love your partner. You come out of denial about being twenty pounds over your natural weight. You decide you want to move. You realize you want more reciprocity in your friendship. In this square, the part of you who loves your partner, was in denial, was happy with the house or the friend has died. A new part who has different loves, wants and needs has arrived. Often this square is the one we resist the most, which sends us to the Stagnant Pond. Don’t love your partner? Just spend more time on Facebook. Go right back into denial about your weight with the aid of potato chips. You get the idea.

Dreaming & Scheming: You’ve accepted that the change has happened, and are starting to dream a new dream for yourself. Maybe it’s rekindling your love, or finding a new flame. You start to read diet and exercise books, dreaming of what might work to shed that weight. You’re really not taking any action yet – you’re just dreaming of what it might be like. It seems like people who have a very high fear of failure can detour out of this one into the Stagnant Pond. The dream sounds amazing, but I could never do it because I need to master Candy Crush.

The Hero’s Saga: Think of Edison and the seven years it took him to create a commercially viable light bulb and you’ve got the Hero’s Saga. He had the end dream…just now how to make it work? You try the partnership erotic weekend. You start a low carb diet.  You sign a lease on a new place. You you’re your friend about your concerns and the dream you have. Usually the detour to the Stagnant Pond here is “well, I tried it and it didn’t work. I would rather be {insert pond activity here] instead anyway.”

The Promised Land: It worked! Finally all of your work towards your dream has gotten you there. The only real detour here is not enjoying it. You head to the pond when your love is in bloom again but you don’t stop to savor it. You achieve your natural weight and decide you just need to be twenty pounds thinner.

For the overview, I’m taking a very simple change so we can easily the phases and where you might have gotten stuck. This change is wanting to redecorate your living room. Easy enough, right? Maybe not – this is actually one of the areas that has sent me to the Stagnant Pond and kept me there!

Death & Rebirth: I look around my living room for the millionth time, dwelling on how it’s just still not “right” and finally decide I’m going to change it.

Dreaming & Scheming: I spend time researching lighting online, I talk to my interior designer friend, I search through stores, thrift shops, online boutiques for ideas. I come up with a rough plan.

The Hero’s Saga: I reframe my pictures, I give away the ugly bench that was taking up space. I then …stall. For a year. I only acknowledge this when writing a series of articles on the Change Cycle.

Where did you stall out? It’s important to figure it out, because when we get to the particular square that you’re stuck on, we can address things that might be holding you back. It also might be interesting to take a look around your life and see if there is a trend on where you get stuck. (I have been calling myself a Square Three Chicken for a while now…just recently I fell in love with this square.)

Leave a comment with the change you’re avoiding/afraid of and which square you were in when you stalled. We’ll get to how to get back into the cycle over the next four weeks.