What Every Transformation Has In Common

My senior year of high school, I played Mrs. Potts in our production of Beauty and the Beast. It was a blast. It was a new challenge dancing around in a teapot, but it was so worth it to be able to sing the iconic “Tale as old as time…”

Now, what truly makes or breaks a production of Beauty and the Beast are the transformations - the transformation of the witch to Enchantress in the beginning and the transformation from Beast to Prince in the end. If you go on youtube, you can find transformation sequences that are downright laughable ( try this one for example). No matter the quality, transparency, or magic behind each of these transformations, every production gets the actor from Point A- the Beast to Point B - the Prince.

Transformations take us from Point A, where we are now, to Point B, where we want to go. I keep a journal of all the transformations I experience or can remember - large and small, silly and important. I discovered 3 similarities between all of my recorded transformations:

• Time - all of my transformations took time. They rarely happened over night or in an instant. Most of them took practice and consistency over time.

• Willingness to fake it - many of my transformations took the guts to pretend like I knew what I was doing until I actually knew what I was doing.

• Self-Compassion - every change I’ve made in my life has required self compassion as I take risks, make mistakes, and get back up again. When I don’t have self-compassion, change is harder and takes longer.

When you look at what you want to change in your life, take these three things into account. And remember, it doesn’t matter how elegant, messy, or magical the transformation is as long as you get from Point A to Point B.