Are you ready to Change?

 

I know, I talked about choices last week, but sometimes we have a hard time making those choices.  You can choose to eat another handful of chips, you choose to skip the gym, or choose to skip a walk. But what happens then? Because you feel so disappointed in yourself you rummage through the pantry for a “quick pick me up” cookie. Then the new habit/behavior begins and continues to spiral done from there.  Do you want to get a hold of your unhealthy behavior?  According to Authors James Prochaska and Carlo Diclemente, there are five stages to change:

1.      PRECONTEMPLATION STAGE: In this stage, people are not thinking seriously about changing and are not interested in any kind of help. People in this stage tend to defend their current bad habit(s) and do not feel it is a problem. They may be defensive in the face of other people's efforts to pressure them to quit.

2.      CONTEMPLATIVE STAGE: In this stage, people are on a teeter-totter, weighing the pros and cons of quitting or modifying their behavior. Although they think about the negative aspects of their bad habit and the positives associated with giving it up (or reducing), they may doubt that the long-term benefits associated with quitting will outweigh the short-term costs

3.      PREPARATION/DETERMINATION STAGE: In the preparation/determination stage, people have made a commitment to make a change. Their motivation for changing is reflected by statements such as: "I've got to do something about this - this is serious. Something has to change. What can I do?"

4.      ACTION/WILLPOWER STAGE: This is the stage where people believe they have the ability to change their behavior and are actively involved in taking steps to change their bad behavior by using a variety of different techniques.

5.      MAINTENANCE STAGE: Finally the action is maintained for several weeks. But most having maintained the change, whether in diet, smoking habit, exercise or whatever, will sooner or later fail and revert to the first or second stage. Then comes the verdict that is most helpful; namely TO FAIL IS NORMAL!!! Next comes the best advice I have found; we should not engage in self retort but instead DISCOVER WHY WE FAILED.

“Most health concerns can be successfully addressed based on the willingness and ability of persons to change aspects of their own behavior.” FOCUS ON HEALTH, sixth edition

I challenge you to take the time to review the five stages, find out where you are and move to the next stage and keep moving until you reach your changed behavior!

Visit the link for more information on this topic:

http://www.addictioninfo.org/articles/11/1/Stages-of-Change-Model/Page1.html