Why are making lifestyle changes such as eating healthy, losing weight, or being more active so hard? We usually know what we need to do, right?

So why don’t we do it?

Typically, because we don’t really understand the process of personal change, the steps change involves and the ups and downs that we’ll experience—and that might derail us if we’re unaware. If we can understand the elements of change, stages of change, emotional stages, and ways to work through each stage, we can better and more readily achieve our health and wellness goals.

The Three Most Important Elements in Changing a Behavior

Let’s look first at the three most important elements in successfully changing a behavior:

• Readiness to change: Do you have the resources and knowledge to make a lasting change successfully? Are you mentally ready for the change? What prompted you to make a change (being overweight, feeling tired, not sleeping, medical conditions)?
• Barriers to change: Is anything preventing you from changing? Lack of support? Accountability?
• Likelihood of relapse: What might trigger a return to a former behavior?

The Six Stages of Change

According to James Prochaska’s and Carlo DiClemente’s Stages of Change Model, there are six stages we all go through when we need or want to make a change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and relapse. There’s an emotional cycle we all go through as well as we attempt change. According to Don Kelly’s and Daryl Conner’s Emotional Cycle of Change, there are five stages you move through emotionally when changing behavior: uninformed optimism, informed pessimism, valley of despair, informed optimism, and success and fulfillment.

To successfully change a behavior, it’s important to try new techniques and find ways to stay motivated. Change occurs gradually, and relapses do happen. People are unwilling or resistant to change during the early stages, but then they eventually develop a proactive and committed approach to changing a behavior—as you know, change isn’t easy and requires a gradual progression of small steps toward a goal.

Let’s look at each of these stages in detail.

PRECONTEMPLATION

In this first stage, we tend to be in denial, not considering or sometimes even ignoring the problem. We claim that our behavior isn’t a problem and we either are under-informed about the consequences of the behavior or may not understand that the behavior is damaging.

If you’re in this stage, you may believe you don’t have any control over your behavior, so you stay in your current state. Have you ever tried to change this behavior in the past? How do you recognize that you have a problem? What would have to happen for you to consider your behavior a problem? To answer these questions, rethink your behavior, analyze yourself and your actions, and assess the risks of the current behavior.

CONTEMPLATION

In the second stage, we may have conflicting emotions or perhaps we’re ambivalent. This could potentially be a roller coaster of emotion. Based on Kelly’s and Conner’s model, we may go through uninformed optimism followed by uninformed pessimism.

During uninformed optimism, we may feel very excited and positive about losing that weight. We may imagine the benefits of having more energy, sleeping better or fitting into those jeans in the back of the closet. However, we haven’t experienced any of the costs. We may see all the benefits of change and none of the downside. We may brainstorm and strategize for the future.

During uninformed pessimism, we learn the reality of what it takes to change. We become more and more aware of the potential benefits of making a change, but the costs tend to stand out even more. We realize we must put forth the effort and commit the time to our goal. Here, the benefits don’t seem as real, important, or immediate, and the costs of the change is apparent. We may question if the change is worth the effort, and even start looking for reasons to abandon the effort.

There’s potential conflict in this stage, which may create a strong sense of ambivalence about changing. You may begin to view change as a process of giving something up rather than a means of gaining emotional, mental, or physical benefits. Ask yourself: Why do I want to change? Is there anything preventing me from changing? What are some things that could help me make this change?

Weigh the pros and cons of behavior change, confirm your readiness and ability to change, and identify the barriers to the change you’re seeking. Because of this uncertainty, the contemplation stage of change can last months or even years.

PREPARATION

During the third stage, we begin making small changes to prepare for a larger life change. For example, if the goal is losing weight, we may start with walking 15 minutes a day or eating a vegetable or fruit at every meal or reading the food labels in the grocery store to avoid too much added sugar or sodium. Or we may take some sort of direct action like joining a health club, hiring a personal trainer, or signing on with a health and wellness coach.

In the preparation stage, you can take specific steps to improve your chances of successfully making a lasting lifestyle change: Gather as much information as you can about ways to change your behavior. Prepare a list of motivating statements. Write down your goals. Find resources such as support groups, or friends who can offer advice and encouragement and help you stay accountable.

ACTION

Action is the fourth stage. We’re doing it, taking the steps toward our goal and seeing the changes brought on with the new behavior.

If you’re in this stage, congratulate and reward yourself for all the positive steps you’re taking!

Reinforcement and social support are extremely important in helping you maintain positive steps toward change. Take the time to periodically review your motivations, resources, and progress to refresh your commitment to your goal and to your belief in your ability to achieve it.

MAINTENANCE

In the fifth stage, we’ve mastered our new behavior. We’re avoiding temptation and keeping up with our new, changed behaviors, continuing to replace old habits with more positive actions.

During this stage you have informed optimism. The possibility of success increases as you are back in a positive emotional zone. The benefits of your actions are starting to bear fruit and the cost of change is feeling worth it. Reward yourself when you can avoid a relapse—the key at this point is avoid stopping and keep going. You also experience a feeling of success and fulfillment from the benefits of your new behaviors while the cost of change now feels worth it. Actions that were once difficult and uncomfortable become routine. You may investigate developing coping strategies for temptation and, of course, remember to reward yourself.

At this point, you become more assured that you can continue your change. But if you do falter, don’t be too hard on yourself or give up—instead, remind yourself that it was just a minor setback.

You’re doing a good job!

RELAPSE

The final stage of change is Relapse. This is the lowest point of the emotional cycle and is when many people give up. When we happen to relapse—which almost everyone does at some point—we may feel disappointed and frustrated and experience feelings of failure. However, the key to success is to not let these setbacks undermine our self-confidence.

If you lapse back to an old behavior, take a hard look at why it happened. What triggered the relapse? What can you do to avoid these triggers in the future? While relapses can be difficult, the best solution is to start again with the preparation, action, or maintenance stages of behavior change.

Worse still, quitting here takes us all the way back to stage one—starting all over again. This is the point where you may experience what Kelly and Conner label as The Valley of Despair, where you feel the pain of change as the benefits seem to have moved far away once again. The quickest way to end the discomfort is to quit and go back to the way you did things before the change was introduced—the past may not seem so bad at this stage.

But you will be able to persevere.

If you know why you’re making the change and have a compelling future vision of what you want to achieve, simply reassess your resources and techniques. Reaffirm your motivation, plan of action, and commitment to your goals. Learn from your experience and make plans for how you’ll deal with any future setback.

A Lot of Effort, But Worth It

It’s not easy to make a major change and make it stick.

Resolutions fail when the proper preparation and actions aren’t taken. By approaching a goal with an understanding of how to best prepare, act, and maintain a new behavior, you’ll be more likely to succeed at keeping your resolution.

Sometimes, You Just Need a Little Help

Have you been unsuccessful sticking to your health and wellness goals? What do you think is holding you back? Lack of support? Feeling overwhelmed? Difficulty in holding yourself accountable or thinking you can’t do it?

If so please reach out to me to set up a wellness audit to explore what’s holding you back and discuss how we can work together so you can fit into those jeans, feel more energized, sleep better, and learn the tools to help you become a happier, healthier you!