Guess
which movie I saw yesterday? Tomorrowland. Seen it? It’s one of those
movies which has a deep meaning to it but the meaning can get lost in
the Sci-fi action that is shown. Now you must be wondering what this
movie has to do with change management training right? Well let me
explain.
Movies
are a great way of learning. They give you a visual experience and some
of them have enough juice in them to allow you to mull over them for
hours and sometimes even days together! I still remember when I first
saw the Matrix. I couldn’t stop thinking about it for so many days!
Well
this movie, Tomorrowland seems to have had a similar effect on me! I
saw it last night and am somehow still under its influence! So what was
so special about this movie? The foundation of it. For most of the
movie, it was rockets flying around and people roaming around in flying
machines in a visually appealing location filled with high risers and
flyovers. In fact I spent a major portion of time actually wondering
what the movie was trying to show and whether it was really going to go
anywhere or not!
- The Tomorrowland Movie
It
was the end of the movie which had its soul, a dialogue given by the
'so-called' villain which explained exactly why he was doing what he was
doing. This in turn was followed by some other good dialogues on human
behaviour. The whole message was very beautiful and it really struck me
as it was so true.
What
the movie talked about was as I said human behaviour. It spoke about
the feedback loop and how we tend to get stuck in it. So in the movie
they had this large monitor which was sending out signals of doom to the
people on earth. The villain had intended that these signals would
actually scare people and they would wake up and do something about the
doom that the earth was heading towards. However, instead of taking
action on it, people latched on to the negative thought. Instead of
fighting against the negative, they now fed into the negative, creating a
negative feedback loop which created more negativity. In this manner
the negativity just continued and nobody made the effort of breaking out
of it! This was until there were some people who were aware of the
negativity and still had hope rose up. They realized that feeding
negativity would lead to more negativity as what you feed grows. They
stood up and fought to save the world with all their positivity and
hope. This in turn inspired others and earth was saved.
- The Wolf Story from Tomorrowland
This
story is actually the story of our minds. What we focus on grows. If we
focus on the negative, the negative grows. Of we focus on the positive,
positive grows. Its up to us what we want to focus on. The world is
going to keep throwing negative on us as it is what is currently there
in the collective consciousness. However if we can stay focused on our
path and bring ourselves back to the positive even when we stray, then
we will turn out to be the winners.
Another
interesting aspect that I found here was the negative monitor which
throws negativity. The monitor is definitely out there in the world. The
politics, famine, murders, hate and resentment being proof of it.
However there is a monitor in our minds too. It’s the tape that keep
running in our minds and telling us how pathetic we are. Even if we do
something good, this tape tells us that it’s not good enough and makes
us feel like losers. It somehow always tells us that we are not good
enough no matter what we do!
It
is actually this tape that is responsible for stopping our progress. If
we can learn to question the tape and only listen to those things that
are true, we can actually make the changes that we want to make in life.
Seeing the link now, the link between this movie and change management training?
So this brings me back to my most favourite model, the model of change.
The Change Model
This model has the following three steps:
So
what do we have to do to change? Go step by step. If you directly jump
to the third step action then you could be setting yourself up for
failure. Why? Haven’t you seen when you try to exercise to lose weight
what happens. Most of us are motivated for about a fortnight and then it
slowly wanes off! So why does this happen? It is because of the little
tape in our minds. It says things to us which make us lode the
motivation that we need to go on. It actually resists the forward
movement, a sort of anti gravity I would say! So the more you try to
move forward the more your mind will pull you back. This makes your
chances of being successful at your endeavor very bleak.
So
what should you do? Go step by step. First get aware of what your tape
is saying. If it’s telling you that you are a lazy person and you will
never be able to lose weight then be aware of it. After you have heard
it out now accept that it is saying that. What happens with most of us
is that we start an internal conflict as soon as we get aware of things.
We start fighting with our minds and all our energy gets wasted in
fighting rather than moving to the next step. So what we have to do here
is to accept what our mind is saying. Tell it that yes we have been
lazy in the past but let’s see what happens this time. This will create a
certain kind of peace inside which will give you enough energy, clarity
and direction to move to the next step of action. Then you can finally
take the third step and create the change that you want in your life.
Getting
aware of and accepting our minds can be quite a task and takes a lot of
practice and motivation. If you want to create a change in your life
and need some help with it, we’re always there to assist you. Join us in
our change management training where we help in mastering our change
management model. Do also visit our
website http://www.theyellowspot.com/ to have a look at the areas where
you would want to create a change in your life.
