Knowing the Five Stages of Change Will Help You Change Your Habits, ESPECIALLY through menopause.

The Stages of Change are for anyone who has habits they’d like to change, but get stuck trying to do that. They’re especially helpful to know at a time of life that requires self compassion, and less perfection.

Understanding the Stages of Change, and WHERE YOU ARE in those Stages of Change, might just be the tool that helps you stay focused, when you struggle with change.

This post and episode is for you if

• You are wondering why you can't change a habit.

• You bounce back and forth between changing what you eat or how you exercise, only to go back to your old way of doing things.

• You tell yourself you need to “get it together” and “get more willpower”. NO.

• You feel bad about yourself when you don't change.

• You feel STUCK trying to change.

Many of you are contemplating your health and your goals, for the coming year, in the form of a New Year's Resolution.

80% of New Year’s Resolutions are bound to fail. (www.health.usnews.com)

Why is this, do you think?

• It takes work to change.

• Change gets uncomfortable.

• There is some stress involved in change.

I’m taking a behavior change model, called the Stages of Change, (the Transtheoretical Model of Change), and looking at how we can apply it to our regular, every day lives.

Many practitioners in the health coaching industry are not taught behavior change. Luckily, I learned about behaviour change when I was a practicing dental hygienist and tobacco educator. I’ve taught health and wellness coaches some of these concepts in behaviour change.

These concepts apply to YOU, whether you work with people in the health realm, or not.

Making change takes time.

It also takes awareness, acceptance and experimenting. Lasting change takes curiosity.

The “21 days to change a habit” thing? It's a myth.

It takes a lot longer to change a habit. Especially if you get stuck trying to do so.

This can happen when you are on a journey to let go of dieting and calorie counting, no matter your tool, using mindful eating, or intuitive eating.

The Stages of Change are taught in a bonus session in my Mindless to Mindful course. There's currently eight audio sessions and two bonus ones.

The Stage of Change model can apply whether you are changing your relationships, career, your food relationship, your relationship to your body, or ANY HABIT CHANGE.

The holiday season, is a great time to look at your food relationship, BEFOERE you embark on turning over a whole new leaf in January.

This way, you have an understanding of WHY you swing back and forth between pantry cleanouts, and too much takeout. That “all or nothing” food mentality, or even gym mentality, when you are killing yourself at the gym and then laying on the couch shows up HUGELY with New Year’s Resolutions.

The stages of change can help you see WHY you keep going back and forth between old habits and intended new ones.

Do you have a focus of change right now, or are you thinking about it in the coming month or two?

Maybe you want to exercise more or quit smoking.

This particular model of change comes from addiction counselling, with tobacco and alcohol. If you were to pick a book up on the Stages of Change, there might be also be talk about weight loss.

CONTENT WARNING: There will be a little bit of “diet talk” to put the Stages of Change in context, in the beginning of this episode, and if that bothers you, skip right on over it.

If you've picked a plan of action and lept right into it, that’s fantastic. Action helps us learn by doing.

Many of us embark on change at the turn of the year.

Have you ever got to a point where you run out of steam?

Have you ever felt derailed, in December, by the holiday parties, food, or events? (if you celebrate that is, and there are many other cultural celebrations around food, at the end of the year).

This can feel discouraging, especially if you are an all or nothing thinker when it comes to food. Knowing where you are in the change cycle is helpful in shifting this type of thinking!

We use phrases like I’m bat to square one” in relation to setbacks with change. Then we feel like we are bad, or there is something wrong with us: that lack of willpower thought creeps up.

Maybe you’re telling yourself that failed, again, and you're asking:

• Why does this always happen?

• Does this mean I just can't do it? I can't do it.

Notice how we always point the finger at ourselves?

Isn't it interesting that many people who embark on a diet, feel like a failure when they fall off the diet? That's just a theme of diets. They're designed that way to make you feel like you're the problem, not the diet.

Fitness does this too.

I'm not here to help you use the Stages of Change to stay on a diet. I'm not into intentional weight loss as a modality to health. It just doesn't make sense to me anymore. I mention it here, because many of you will want to continue in this behavior because it's so ingrained in you, especially if you're my age.

What are the Stages of Change?

1. Precontemplation:

   You are not ready to change. 
   You have no intention of taking action on a behavior or habit within the next 6 months.

   Example: someone who knows they could benefit from quitting smoking, or eating more veggies, but is not even thinking of doing that in the near future.

   If we are to apply this to mindful eating, you may be saying, yeah that's all good, but I am not ready to learn about that or try that.

   There are many reasons why people stay here and get stuck.
   Why could that be?

   📌 Maybe you are still focused on weight loss, instead of focusing on health behaviors. Your mind can't compute another way to look at health, and you are not ready or even ready to think of pros and cons of this whole concept.

   📌 Maybe your pros of staying the same, outweigh the pros of changing right now. 

   📌 Maybe you sit there and think, i don't know if I can change, or if I can do this, and you never move past doubt at trying something new

   📌 Maybe the thing that you are trying to change is something you need to do for your health, and you know that deep inside, but you are just not ready to do it, you may lack the confidence, the willingness to get to the next step.

2. Contemplation:
   You are getting ready, you are thinking about changing a behavior. You may be thinking of taking some action within the next 6 months. Right now, we are in the ramp up to the holidays, and you may be contemplating what you will do WHEN EATING SEASON IS OVER.

   You may not be taking action because of this:
   
   📌 Procrastination:
   Thoughts like “I’ll get to that in January, right now I want to have fun, be social and enjoy delicious things!”
   
   Ask Yourself:

   🤔 Why can’t you do that all the time?
   🤔 Do delicious things seem unhealthy?
   🤔 “Bad”?
   🤔 Why do we save pleasure for holidays?
   
   On the one hand, we do need some special times in life to look forward to, but on the other hand if we deprive too much, this sets us up in that black or white all or nothing thinking and food mentality.

3. Preparation:

   You are ready. You are ready to take action within the next month or so  Your focus may be planning out your health goals right now.
   You might be thinking about your sleep, hydration, activity level up, throughout the coming weeks, before and after the holiday season.
   You are preparing.

4. Action:

   You are making the desired changes, but have done so for less than 6 months. You may be in action stage of supporting your goals, all while navigating the season, whether the holidays or a season of life.
   Your focus might be on choice. Attend one more party? Or have a night of rest? No alcohol at one function so you can be feeling good for the next day, to take on a walk?
   
   There can be discomfort in the action phase of change.

5. Maintenance:
   You have incorporated the desired behavior for more than 6 months. You are implementing what you have consciously chosen, and there is some effort, the uncomfortable part of change is still there. You are incorporating changes with more ease (mostly) The changes you have chosen to make are mostly happening. You are staying in action, tweaking. Your focus is maintain, keep the effort up, tweak and refine.

6. Termination:

   You are confident in your ability to keep this change, and you are not tempted to go back to old ways. You have the skills and tools to understand that you don’t want the consequences of going back to old behaviour.

   Your focus is on FORWARD MOTION. You are confident that you have the ability to keep this change. Changes are incorporated in your life!
   
   If you do have a setback, you will fall into the next category.

7. Relapse:

   If you were to google search the Stages of Change, there may be a “relapse” phase of change. There are many smokers, and drinkers, that quit and then go back to drinking and smoking, and this can be called relapsing.

   One of the aspects of being successful in quitting smoking, is the amount of times attempted in quitting. IF you have a setback, you can re-enter any stage at any time. Getting back into a Stage of Change, knowing that your success really depends on the amount of times that you attempt something, OR if you attempt it DIFFERENTLY, raises your chances of meeting goals.

The practice of change is actually the juice in changing habits.

Reentering a phase of change should not feel shameful. When we talk about relapse and addiction, or overeating, we feel shame.

Reentering a phase of change is normal.

It's a conscious effort on your part to say,

“Hey, okay, I had a setback. It’s normal. Where do I go from here?

Old programming keeps us safe. One of the reasons you may be reverting to that old programming is deep in your unconscious.

Getting conscious about why you do the things you do, is so helpful when changing habits.

Being aware and conscious, when it comes to food, helps make pernament changes in your food relationship.

I love mindful eating to support your food relationship, because you get conscious about habits and patterns around your eating behaviours!

Bring that curiosity to any health goal.

Make it part of your health journey.

Adopt this way of thinking and you will feel *successful* all year long.

Be curious and ask questions:

• What happens when you reach for the chocolate?

• Are you hungry? How hungry?

• Did something trigger you? What?

• What happened before?

Bring curiosity and awareness to what happens in between your attempts to change a habit. If you go back and forth between old behavior and new, are you aware of it?

Remember:

We live in seasons.

Our weeks have seasons.

Our days have seasons.

Our cycles are seasons.

Be kind to yourself when you are struggling with any Stage of Change.

How was this post and episode for you?

Did it help you feel you can tackle some of the habit changes you want?

If so, I would be grateful if you would share it on Facebook or your favourite social media platform:)

Until we meet again, may your life feel full and uniquely yours.

I’d love to read your comments below!