Saturday, June 25, 2005

Doing What Comes Naturally


This is a VERY cool project: http://www.wwt.org.uk/supergoose/

If you allowed yourself to do what comes naturally, where might you fly?


(photograph: Johan Oli Hilmarsson/WWT)

Today is rich
with possibility...

How will I choose
to live it?



Two Lights, Cape Elizabeth
second home...home to my soul.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Stages 1 & 2: Precontemplation and Contemplation

PRECONTEMPLATION STAGE

"It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem."

This quote from G. K. Chesterton starts a paragraph explaining the Precontemplation Stage in Changing for Good. People in this stage generally have no intention of changing their problematic behaviour. It's not a problem for them, so why should they change? Everyone around them can see the problem except the "precontemplator". And, if you can get them to consider changing, it's usually to stop what they see as the constant criticism coming from those around them. They'll go to therapy, try a diet, stop drinking for a day, just to shut people up. Their chances for success are doomed, but they can say they tried.

People in this stage generally don't have much information about their problem, and they'd like it to stay that way. Ever try getting someone in denial to see a movie or read an article about the consequences of obesity, drinking or smoking?

If someone in this stage should begin to think about change, they may feel helpless to change their behaviour. Encouragement and being supportive - not nagging! - will be helpful in supporting someone through change. For the person who has the desire to change, it's very helpful to engage the help of people you love and trust. You'll need to rely on their eyes and ears for a while. Avoid negative people; their criticisms and personal attacks will only fortify your defenses, making awareness of your problem and it's consequences extremely difficult.

Helpful Strategies
  • Remember that change is a cycle, and there are other stages to move through. You don't have to stay stuck.
  • Allow those who care about you to help you
  • Identify your defenses
  • develop openness and awareness

CONTEMPLATION STAGE

In this stage people are aware of their problems. They are open to the possibility of change. Generally, they have plans to take action in the next six months or so. This is not the same as making a commitment to action. It's too soon. This is what happens on New Year's Day. We know we need to make some changes, and we commitment to action on the magical date of January 1st, no matter whether we're ready for action or not. It's New Year's Day and off we go. On January 10, we're usually back to our New Year's Eve behaviours. Why? It's as simple as this: We know what's wrong, what needs to change. We know what we need to do to make the change. But, we're just not ready.

The institution of New Year's Resolutions pressures us into premature action. Or maybe, as in the case above, it's the nagging and criticism of family and friends. Either way, we haven't done the groundwork needed for successful change, and what's needed to move into the next stage of change.

Helpful Strategies

  • Get information about the problem and possible solutions
  • Define your goals in concrete, achievable and measureable terms (I want to lose ten pounds within the next 2 months; I want to quit smoking and use the money saved for a long weekend away this year)
  • Collect data (how much do you currently smoke, weigh, drink, spend, work? What would be healthier/more reasonable?)
  • Stop and think before you act. Ask yourself, why am I doing this?
  • Reflect on your behaviour: (What do I gain by staying in this job?)
  • Create a new self-image. Ask yourself these questions: How would you feel about yourself if you made this change? How would others feel about you if you made this change?

Two words of caution here...It can be easy to stay stuck in the Contemplation Stage. I know, I've done it myself. What does that look like? Substituting thinking for acting. Reading about the problem and solutions, talking about the problem and solutions, but not actually doing anything about them. Sound familiar? Sometimes fear of failure can keep us stuck here as well. You'll only fail if you don't try!

Next Friday I'll talk about the next two stages - Preparation and Action.

Friday, June 10, 2005

Can't Get There From Here....Or Can You?

Welcome back to the second in a six-part series about Change.

Doctors James Prochaska, John Norcross and Carlo DiClemente have challenged and revolutionized the way we think about change. In their book Changing for Good, they have identified six stages of change (listed below) and offer suggestions of how to successfully move from one stage to the next.

This is quite different from most of our thinking which usually imagines us going from Point A - our current state, which might be smoking, overweight, stressed, depressed, drinking too much or maybe feeling stuck in life - to Point B, where we're not smoking, overweight, stressed, depressed, have our drinking under control and are blissfully happy with our work and partner and living a fulfilling life. We know what we're doing now and where we are, and we don't want to be there anymore.

So what do we do? Go on a diet maybe, throw out all our cigarettes or devise a system to cut down; we try to think happy thoughts and be grateful for what we have, and limit our drinking. We buy the books, read the articles and with great gusto enter into not practicing the behavior that's making us unhappy. We are motivated. We are committed.

Then Day 3 arrives. Or Day 4. Or maybe even Day 7 or 14. Our enthusiasm and motivation have waned, and suddenly we're back where we were - eating, smoking, depressed, stressed and with the added burden of feeling worse about ourselves and feeling more stuck than ever. What happened?

Each stage in the Cycle of Change has its own strategies for success and moving forward, so once you identify where you are in the cycle when you begin, you ensure a greater chance of success by applying the appropriate strategies. This is why it's important to know where you are in order to make sure you'll get where it is that you want to go!

This also suggests that we're always in a cycle of change. Sounds good to me. Change isn't a conveyer belt I need to hop onto - it's organic and ongoing. And, according to this system, it isn't a linear progression. We move in and out of different stages on our way to the success of the next stage. We need to look at the behavior we want to change, the goal we want to achieve in light of where we are in the Cycle of Change with that particular behavior. Once we can identify where we are then we can apply proven methods of support for that change.

When you look at change through this model, you can easily understand why we may have been (repeatedly) unsuccessful in the past: we've applied the wrong strategies for change to the wrong stage. We put the cart before the horse, so to speak.

Here are Prochaska's Six Stages of Change. Think about a change you want to make in your own life. Can you identify which stage you're in?

1. Precontemplation or Denial: Everything is fine just the way it is (in spite of what your
doctor, spouse, friends or workmates tell you!)
2. Contemplation: Beginning to acknowledge the problem.
3. Preparation: Planning to take action within the next 6 months
4. Action: Modifying behavior and surroundings
5. Maintenance: Sustaining new behavior
6. Termination: Former problem no longer presents a threat or temptation.

NEXT WEEK: We'll look at steps one and two, and some strategies for movement.


Friday, June 03, 2005

It's the SMALL STEPS that lead to BIG CHANGES

Hello and Welcome:
This is the first in a series about Change. Successful Change, to be specific. I will post a new article each Friday for the next six weeks, each addressing a different feature of change.

Whether you want to lose weight, increase your productivity, find more time, get more energy, find your focus, change career or any other change you desire to make, research shows that long-term, successful change is the result of small, incremental changes.

The logic is straightforward. If you take a small step and make a small change, two things happen: a) you experience a sense of control over your life, and b) you feel a sense of accomplishment and success, and there's no motivation like success!

It takes 21 days to create a new habit and only 72 hours to lose it, so you can see the wisdom of small steps. You are much more likely to integrate a small change for three weeks than you will a larger change. But even more than that, if you set out to accomplish a large change all at once, anything short of that change is failure. And what happens when we fail? Not only do we revert to what is familiar behaviour, our self-esteem takes another knock, and we miss an opportunity to celebrate a sweet success.

When we set ourselves a course for change, it's important to plot waypoints along the course that leads to our final destination - or desired change. In nautical or navigational terms, waypoints are stopping points along the journey. They break the larger journey into smaller "chunks". Always headed toward your final destination, you get there by navigating waypoint to waypoint. Waypoints are an opportunity to measure how far you've come and also opportunities to celebrate, look around, and get some support for the next leg of the journey. They're the small steps leading to change. Let me give you a personal example.

I want to have a wonderful website that will inform clients and prospective clients about me, and my own unique approach to the life coaching work that I do. A good website can also be a excellent marketing tool. But, as I said in my first blog...I'm a technophobe. There's a lot I have to learn about web design - even if I were to hire someone to do that for me. There's so much to consider and make informed decisions about: content, colour, graphics, fonts, links, resources, etc. And for me, learning is going to take time. To get a site up and running feels way too big for me right now. So, I've broken my goal down into "do-able" chunks.

The first was to start this blog - my first venture into the cyberworld. My goal with the blog was a modified website idea - a place where my clients and prospective clients could get an idea of who I am and how I see the world. Marketing is another area in which I have little to no knowledge. All I know is that whatever marketing I did it had to be authentic and congruent with who I am.

So, trusting that the best way to use the blog would "show up", I simply wrote until it did. I wrote to get into the habit. I wrote to become comfortable. I wrote to wait. And then, this morning, I knew what to do. That's why this is the first of a series I'll be writing about Change.

My goal: to have an amazing, interesting and dynamic website as a marketing tool
First Waypoint: creating a blog
Second Waypoint: creating a series on Change

Where to next? Don't know. I'll continue to learn about website design. Right now, though, I'm thoroughly enjoying creating this series on Change.

Next Friday: Cycle of Change (or the importance of knowing where you are now in order to know how to get where you're going!)