Mental Moment-Change Takes Time
We are so used to thinking a certain way that changing thought patterns…phew can be difficult! The way you think and talk to yourself has become so ingrained and so involuntary that it feels like its out of your control. The challenge is that it’s not out of your control. When I talk to clients about this I initially see a look of relief following by panic and fear. At first thought clients are relieved that change is possible and that they are in control of it but therein also lies the problem, ‘I am in control of it but how do I change it’. 🙂 That combination tends to leave people feeling a little overwhelmed.
As with any behavior change this too takes time and patience. You will not go from being completely negative to completely positive in a day. You will not go from lacking confidence to being completely confident in a week. You will not go from being unfocused to being completely focused in a month. This is important to know because somewhere in our brains we think, ‘OK, I have control over not beating myself up, I know what to do to change it and wallah it’s gonna happen today’! If you figure out how to do this please let me know.
In behavior change there are stages. In each of the stages, a person has to grapple with a different set of issues and tasks that relate to changing behavior. The stages are as follows:
- Precontemplation (Not yet acknowledging that there is a problem behavior that needs to be changed)
- Contemplation (Acknowledging that there is a problem but not yet ready or sure of wanting to make a change)
- Preparation (Getting ready to change)
- Action (Changing behavior)
- Maintenance (Maintaining the behavior change)
- Relapse (Returning to older behaviors and abandoning the new changes)
I’ve used these steps in my exercise psychology class and in training personal trainers for years and this also holds true for any change.The idea is that people tend to progress through different stages on their way to successful change and at our own rate. Expecting behavior change by simply telling yourself to change is rather naive (and perhaps counterproductive) because you are not ready to change.
Once you are, 1. aware of what you want to change 2. know how to start making changes 3. you can start patiently making those changes. One of the challenges is that even when people say they are ready to make change, they are not quite prepared and unconsciously want to hang onto old behaviors (there are a variety of reasons). Another challenge is that people expect change to happen immediately. A great example of that comes from my work in exercise psychology. People decide they should exercise (notice the should) and think that they need to start off doing 1-hour everyday (notice the 1-hour, everyday) at the gym (the gym is not fun for most people). This is a good example (and one I see time and time again) in making making immediate change that sets you up for failure, guilt, pain, and a decrease in confidence. I know people mean well when they want to move forward in this way but it doesn’t work and it’s not sustainable.
Each person must decide when a stage is completed and when it is time to move on to the next stage. Moreover, this decision must come from the inside you (see developing an internal locus of control) — stable, long term change cannot be externally imposed.
Eventually, if you maintain maintenance long enough, you will reach a point where you will be able to work with your emotions and understand your own behavior and view it in a new light. This can be considered transcendence, a transcendence to a new way of thinking or behaving. In this stage, not only is your bad habit no longer an integral part of your life but to return to it would seem atypical, abnormal, even weird to you.
When you reach this point in your process of change, you will know that you have transcended the old bad habits and that you are truly becoming a new you, who no longer needs the old behaviors to sustain yourself.
It’s taken so many years to get where you are, what makes you think you can change that in a day? You can change the color of your hair or the style of your shoes in a day but you cannot change embedded thoughts, feelings or behaviors in a day.
Happy start of your week!
Dr. Michelle
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