Breakthrough Life Coaching Newsletter: Making Changes

"Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success."
   Swami Sivananda

"If we observe the way in which people perceive the events in their lives, appreciate the quality of the lived moment, and create their future by overcoming obstacles with an open and creative attitude, we find that the optimists have an undeniable advantage over the pessimists."
   Matthieu Ricard
   from Happiness

July Newsletter

I was listening to a lecture by Dr. Prochaska, a psychologist who studies change. He believes there are six stages people go through when making a change in some area of their lives.

The lecture reminded me of what I was thinking about and feeling before I made the decision to go back to graduate school and change careers. I remember sitting in my office feeling disconnected from the work I was doing. I felt unfulfilled and that something was missing in my life. I became filled with dread when I thought about the possibility of feeling this way for years to come. I wanted to make a change but felt stuck.

How could I pull this off? What I desired most was to help people. How was I going to go from financial services into a career that would provide an opportunity to make a difference in peoples’ lives? I had so many things to consider.

During that period I had arrived at the stage of contemplation.

See if you can identify what stage of change you are in. This is a good summary of Prochaska’s stages provided by MentorCoach:

1. PRECONTEMPLATION: Features of this stage:

a. No intention of change in behavior

b. In denial, didn’t know change was needed

c. Feels safe in current behavior

d. Unaware

e. Defenses keep person from recognizing the problem

2. CONTEMPLATION: Features of this stage:

a. Needing to understand the problem in order to move forward solidly

b. Weighing the sacrifice of their familiar life vs. going into the unknown

c. In the “Someday Syndrome” – some day I will change but I am thinking about it now

d. In a state of anxiety

e. In chronic vs. appropriate contemplation – people who keep putting action off vs. people who will take action soon

3. PREPARATION: Features of this stage:

a. Intending to take action in the next month

b. May have unsuccessfully taken action in the past year and may be cycling back. Are you ready now? It is not uncommon to go through this cycle a few times

c. This is a great stage to begin life coaching

4. ACTION: An individual in action is focused and energetic. They are in the process of modifying their behavior to bring about the change and learning to do so consistently

5. MAINTENANCE: This is the stage where you work hard to prevent relapse to consolidate the gain you made during the ACTION phase

6. TERMINATION: The change has become integrated into your life.

What can you do to move one step closer to taking action and living the life you truly desire? What holds you back?

Reference: Prochaska J. O., Norcross J. C., DiClemente C. C. (1994). Changing for good. New York: Morrow