Recently someone related this story to me..........

~Struggling Butterfly Story~

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly.
One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched
the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force
its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop
making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far
as it could and it could go no farther.

So the man decided to help the butterfly, he took a pair of
scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon.
The butterfly then emerged easily.

But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.
The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected
that, any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be
able to support the body, which would contract in time.

Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling
around with a swollen body and shriveled wings.
It never was able to fly.

What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand
was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required
for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were
nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly
into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once
it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life.
If we went through our life without any obstacles, it
would cripple us. We would not be as strong
as what we could have been. And we could never fly.


I find this storyline very much in-line with the very essence of coaching someone in the Solution Focused way. Very often, like the man, we couldn't help it to just give someone we are coaching ready-made answers or suggestions.....not knowing that will only cripple them later on in life.