“Choose your rut carefully you may be in it for some time” the saying goes and many clients come to counselling feeling stuck with their lives and unsure about how to make positive changes. It may be that we want to tackle our relationship problems or how we feel about our work. Perhaps you feel that there is something missing in your life and you want to bring about change. In this article we will look at the practical steps you can take to help you with the emotional and practical problems of making changes. How do you change your life for the better
There are 5 widely recognised stages of change: Pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance.
Pre-contemplation
This is the stage before we decide to change, we may have decided our relationship is fine, or we don’t need to lose weight etc. The thought is very much that you are unaware of the change or are in denial of the change that you need to make. Often it takes a trigger to move out of this stage, your partner threatening to leave, a health scare or an emotional crisis. Yet the fact you are reading this suggests that you are at least moving out of if not clear of this stage.
Contemplation
Almost as the name suggests in this phase you are looking at the effects of the change. What is the cost (emotion, time, money ) of making the change what difference will it make. It is possible to get stuck in this stage never sure that you want to commit to changes.
Often working with a coach can help you to set goals and help move the changes to reality.
Preparation
Many people fail in making changes because of the failure to prepare. The 5 Ps are very important “proper planning prevents poor performance”. In this stage of course you might set up the practical things that you might need, but there is a mental preparation a switch toward thinking about how much better your life will be with your new habits – living the effects of the new behaviour.
For example thinking about feeling fitter, or having a better relationship, feeling happier.
Action
Finally we actually make the changes we change our behaviour to our lifestyle. Perhaps we are eating healthier. This is the riskiest stage this is where the work done in preparation and contemplation come together to give us goals and motivation to keep us on track when we hit hurdles and obstacles
Part of the action step is accepting relapse as a reality. You are going to make mistakes you are going to get it wrong sometimes, in part that is what being human is all about, don’t let it be the thing that stops the change. Learn any mistakes and move on.
Maintenance
The 5th and final step is having made the change is making it a sustained part of your life. That might be regularly reviewing your progress, it might be regularly changing your goals to keep interest. It could be about interacting with someone else as in the case of a relationship. Usually the maintenance stage is going to suggest where the next change is going to come from.
If you follow these steps then your life can change for the better.