When I heard Robert Gass, co-founder of Rockwood Leadership Institute, explain the difference between change and transformation – it was a powerful moment of clarity for me.  “When you undergo a true transformation,” he shared, “you never go back to the way you were.  So many organizational and personal change efforts fail,” he continued, “because people only pay attention to one or two areas of the wheel of change (hearts and minds/structures/behaviors), but don’t fully address all three.”

With this new understanding, I committed to a paradigm shift in both my work and my personal life.  One of the changes was to look at what I could do to support my desire to write and bring creativity into my life in a much fuller way.  I used the distinction between change and transformation to ground me and used the image of a butterfly, as inspiration.  Once a butterfly – you never go back to caterpillar.   Using the metaphor, I designed The Butterfly Series, a writing and creative arts workshop for women who want to explore what’s next in their life journey.  I integrated my love of writing and my desire for more creativity into my work so that it’s not a separate part of me, but an essential way in which I now live in the world.

Take a moment today to ask yourself, “What in my life no longer serves me, the people I love or the world around me?”   Be honest with yourself; listen to what you have to say and then take the next smallest step to become what’s next.