What it really takes to take action and change your life
There is so much you probably don’t know about the human condition and why change is so hard to accomplish.
You have been taken advantage of by the social expectations of change.
You go through each one of these stages without even knowing it.
I have honestly been apart of this problem. Telling people to just take action. Start doing things. Make the change. Blaming them for being too lazy to act, or berating them for being incapable of the change set before them. Change that will increase their quality of life. Help them become better humans and honestly transform their day to day reality. But for whatever reason they just CANNOT act, they CANNOT change and I, as a coach am constantly frustrated by that. That was until I knew these three things about behavior change. As much as we wish it were, change is not a completely linear process. Anything that is linear moves in a nearly perfect straight line and continues as such until the goal is met. Change cannot and DOES NOT work that way. If you think about the idea of change and how it is defined you come to realize that change does not mean you have been smoking for 20 years and just decide one day to quit, do it cold turkey and are successful in doing so.
Change is defined as: the act or instance of making or becoming different.
"the change from a nomadic to an agricultural society"
That process is a long-term process with nuances of change, not grandiose change from one extreme to another. You need to shift your perception of change. It is not an EVENT, it is a process that occurs over time. Once you begin to understand that you can begin to give yourself a little more grace and find yourself experience far more success. But before we get into the mindset around change we must understand change through the lens of the Transtheoretical Model. Don’t get wrapped up in the fancy word, this model took many disciplines of science and created a new way of looking at change. A way that incorporates behavioral and counseling science with 35+ years of research, interventions, and empirical studies.
Fact #1: Change has proven stages.
The 5 stages of change. (https://www.prochange.com/transtheoretical-model-of-behavior-change)
Before you even begin to change something in your life your subconscious is weighing the pros and cons of the event. Back and forth, over and over, creating a preconceived idea about why the change does or does not need to happen. We are talking ourselves out of the change before we really even decide we want to pursue it. Sadly, less than 20% of us are ready to begin taking action on change even if we are at an extreme risk of adverse health for not changing. The odds are really stacked against us. During this PRE-CONTEMPLATION Stage we are nowhere near ready for ACTION, yet we see constant action oriented ads, posts, videos, and social media messages. We are being screamed at from all angles that is time to ACT and make a change when in reality we need more facts first. During this period you literally are unaware of how your current behaviors are affecting your life or you do not see the full weight of your actions. Therefore you are under-informed or misinformed resulting in the need for action. Why act if nothing is wrong? I definitely cannot be upset with someone for that. It is hard to be held accountable for things you do not understand or realize. This leads us to the next stage. The CONTEMPLATION stage. If we are being honest, most of us are in this boat. We have heard enough from social media, our doctors or our friends and family that we realize a change should probably occur, however, we are still not quite ready to push GO today. We are getting ready, but still have one foot in the pre-contemplation canoe. During the research, it was found that those in this stage have about equal reasons for why they should and should not change. Their list of pros and cons are almost identical.
Example: I should start meal prepping and making healthier food.
PROS: I will have meals ready for me, I will eat more healthy options, I will be prepared when life gets stressful, this will help me reach my weight loss goals
CONS: This takes too much time, I do not know what to cook or eat, It is expensive to buy this whole food, I have messed up before and I will likely do it again why waste my time?
At this stage, you need more information. You need someone to tip the scales of your “decisional balance sheet”. You currently have an equal amount of pros and cons, therefore you do not act, you keep thinking in your head about how important the cons are and they outweigh the equally important pros. We don’t like change and therefore we will find any reason we can to stick with our current daily actions and routines.
Tip the scales of your decisional balance sheet
You can stay in the stage of contemplation for months. This is the most pivotal point in the 5 stages to change. You need enough convincing information to grow your list of pros and outweigh your list of cons. If you resonate with this stage, you are not alone! You just need more information. You need to convince yourself that change is WORTH IT. Until that happens your cons will outweigh your ability to act.
However, if you hear one thing from this blog today, hear this.
It is okay that you have not taken action yet, stop beating yourself up for it. Better yet, stop letting other people beat you up for it!
Action will come at the right time and I believe that it is sometimes better to have all your ducks in a row before frivolously acting, not being ready or having the right support and falling on your face. Change is fragile and when you fail enough you become calloused to change and it gets harder and harder to make a change in the future. Protect yourself and have a raging fire in your belly for change when you do decide to act, never act because someone else told you its a good idea…
STEP 3: PREPARATION
Finally you are ready for the change!
At this point in the process, you have weighed your pros and cons and realized that the PROS are totally worth it. You are ready to act and are going to do so in the next day, week or month. Leading up to this you have done some deep work researching the topic, finding help and building up your self-confidence. I believe this is the point at which you decide to love yourself and put yourself first. The temptation for keeping the old habit is much lower because you VALUE yourself and the person you want to become. You can taste this change in your life and it is going to be oh so sweet. Most people in this stage hire a coach to guide them through this process. Create a sustainable plan for them and give them the continued tools they need to keep the pro list high and the con list low.
Now it is time for step 4, but before we dig in, know this…
FACT #2: It will take longer than you think to get to the action stage.
12+ months to be exact.
Getting to the stage of action does not mean that you have arrived. If we are being really honest the hardest work is found in the first three stages. I must also say that the word action is misleading. You have been taking ACTION during the first three stages. You have been acting during this whole process but the 4th stage is when you start to reap some of the benefits.
Think of the action stage as observable changes in your daily routine. Your smaller daily habits have compounded over time and you now have a result. You have metrics to show the progress you are making.
Examples of this 4th stage can include: walking for 20 minutes a day, smoking fewer cigarettes a day, watching less TV, moving X amount more a day, eating 3 more vegetable colors a week. There is empirical data showing that your risk for disease has gone down, are you perfect? NO! But you are doing more positive actions and these positive actions are leading to noticeable life improvements day after day. It is consistent and it is measurable.
As you can see this process takes a LONG time to go through. You will find that you get through two stages, something happens and you move back a stage, then up two, then back one, etc.
The process is much like a kite in the sky. As the environment and outside temperatures and pressures change, the kite drops and raises, over and over again. Eventually, the kite gets high enough that it is able to stay consistently afloat, however, the person on the ground cannot stop moving or navigating the kite. If the person on the ground loses focus, the kite will begin to wander or possibly slip back down. Your journey through these stages is the exact same way.
Because the next stage is maintenance. Maintenance is the period where you have achieved the habit you set-out to form and it is performed overtly (without question, perfectly). The most obvious example would be quitting smoking. You started smoking 4 cigarettes a day and now you smoke ZERO. The goal of maintenance is to avoid relapse at all costs and continue ACTING. During this time you are not creating NEW ACTIONS you are continuing the habits and actions you formed during the first 4 stages of this process. The great thing about maintenance is the large reservoir of action you have built up over time creating a large supply of confidence to pull from when temptation rears its ugly head. Research shows that this phase lasts anywhere from 6 months to 5 years. Which is a little defeating, but you can find it encouraging. This tells you that perfection really is not attainable so you can STOP beating yourself up for not attaining it. It was found that after 12 months of abstinence from smoking 42% returned to the habit but after 5 years of abstinence, a mere 7% relapsed! This further proves the point of building up your confidence through becoming what you set out to become and acting on that daily.
Now you fully understand the 5 stages of change, but what does this mean for health and wellness?
The way these stages are explained in this model is fairly black and white but nutrition is not and should not be that black and white.
I fully agree with this model and its parallels for making long-term healthy lifestyle changes until stage 5. For this model, stage 5 is an avoidance stage but I do not believe we are trying to completely eliminate or cut out anything FOREVER. You might need to cut back on eating out, limit your alcohol, eat more protein, eat more veggies, or control your processed carbohydrates, but you are not going to do any of those things 100% of the time. If you ask me, I believe maintenance is the period in which you grow your habits, do the habits you set out to form more often or more consistently. The habits do not change but they grow in length and width.
Perfect Example Process:
Months 1-6: I should probably move more. But I do not want to and I move enough probably with work and the kids, yeah I am fine.
Months 7-9: Seeks professional advice, watches videos, attends some seminars and realizes how much sedentary living affects health and long-term health. Sees the gaps in daily routine and firmly believes that he/she could move more. Begins walking 1-2 times a day. Stretches once a week.
Month 10: Decides to do some at-home workout videos. Calls a few gyms and attends a free class. He/She continues working out at home. Researches the best ways to workout.
Month 11: Chooses a gym and signs up for 2 x a week. Gets personal training 1x a week. The coach helps write out a 90-day plan for fitness and nutrition.
Month 12: Starts implementing the plan, working out 3 x week for a whole month, continues walking and implements some of the new eating ideas.
Month 13: Continues the habits, consistently.
Month 14: Grows the habits and decides to compete in a local ___________ competition.
As you can see in the example the seemingly small initial habits/actions spiraled into a complete life change. But in reality, he/she will have weeks where a workout is missed, some fast food is eaten and some extra alcohol is consumed. BUT PROGRESS IS NOT DERAILED. If this is you, you still have hours of progress, weeks of new habits and thousands of tiny actions that are building you into a better human being. Maintenance is a constant battle to keep moving forward. Once you are in maintenance I can yell at you to ACT. KEEP TAKING ACTION. But most of us need help getting from step 1 to 4.
This brings us to Fact #3.
You need help shifting how your mind perceives the action you want to engage in. You need more information to overpower your long list of cons keeping you complacent and trapped in your current daily routine.
As a coach that is what I am trained to do. I understand the stages of change. I understand how to level with you and guide you from where you are, not yell at you for where you are not. If you are ready to make real change in 2020 you need to get more FACTS. Find a trusted source and confide in them, get the support you need. If you are in the Preparation stage I encourage you to consider coaching with me for your health and wellness goals.