Seeing the Complete Picture

I consider myself to be a huge movie buff, and there are a few TV shows that I regularly follow, so you'll find that I quote or refer to them often. Fox has a great new TV show called "Lie to Me" (Wednesdays, 8pm) which is about a psychologist who studies body and facial expressions.  During an episode that aired January 30, Dr. Lightman commented to an untrained, but gifted analyst that, "when you don't know the science, you don't see the whole picture." I immediately wrote the quote down and have been thinking about how it applies to the process of change and so many areas of life, in general.

There's a difference between knowing the science and having the gift.  Science is a systematic, organized study of a particular discipline, and by having a knowledge of the science, you can make predictions about what will happen in certain situations.  The gift, on the other hand, is an innate, supernatural ability that you were born with.  There is an organized body of information about change and transformation, but it's often hard to see the total development without an understanding of the science behind it. So if you were to ask me if  I'd rather have the gift or the science, I would pick the science.  I believe that as long as you have the science you can always improve the gift, but if you just have the gift, all it is is whatever exists at any given moment in time.  Tiger Woods is a great example of this principle-he has both, the science and the gift, and that's what makes him such an incomparable athlete.  In every interview he does, you always hear him say that he thinks he can get better.  He's always working to improve his game and not rest on his talent alone.  He studies the science of the swing, course management, and the science of putting and is constantly making changes to push his own limits and test new theories.  Knowing the science allows you to stay in a constant state of evolution.      

One of my  goals as a consultant and life coach is to give people another framework from which to analyze their current situation.  When I sit down with people, I give them "containers" to put their experiences in that are larger than the containers they've been using. When you analyze the information yourself, it's like putting everything into a small container and trying to make sense of it while it's all jumbled together.  As a Coach, I'm here to educate you about the science of change as a means of viewing your situation from a different perspective.  The courage to enter into dialogue and the trust built in dialogue often bring enlightenment.  If you're looking for someone to think along beside you, send me an email.