Any state of being that causes unhappiness will take change if you desire a better life. That’s obvious or is it? If dissatisfaction were the only thing involved, then no one would diet more than once or give up smoking for the umpteenth time. A person would look at her image, assess that her body is overweight and that would be that. Hmmm…doesn’t usually work like that. So, what is the dynamic that goes on that blocks us from attaining our goal and creating abundance?
In a single word,, Change! Resistance and change go hand in hand. Why is that? Could it be that we really are uninformed about what change really means? Fortunately, research has uncovered new understandings about the change process.
The research started with Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who became aware that change occurs in stages. She was doing ground breaking work within the context of death and dying when she observed similarities in the responses of her patients after they had received terminal diagnoses. Dr. Kubler-Ross created a change model based on this information. It had five stages and was linear and somewhat rigid, issues she would later be criticized for.
After all, up until this time, no one else had published this kind of research. Once her change model was brought to the attention of her colleagues, shortcomings were identified.
However, let’s start out with the five stages Dr. Kubler-Ross named. They are Denial/Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Meaning/Acceptance. Instead of looking at how those 5 stages worked for her patients, let’s fast forward to other research and other change models. Significant differences between the old and new change models are new stage names, adding a sixth stage and the idea that the stages are very permeable. The new names are Pre-contemplation, Contemplation, Preparation, Action, Maintenance and Termination/Re-entry.
In the context of dying and death, the result is understood, but if we apply these new stages to another arena of life such as dieting or quitting an addiction, now we have something to examine. Also, we have an grasp of the complexity of change.
Using the example of dieting is rather easy for us to grasp. We’ve all seen photos of obese people and possibly asked ourselves the question, “How did they get this way?” The the simple answer, and it really isn’t simple, is that the person was in the first stage of denial/pre-contemplation. He is oblivious to his situation. Let me be blunt, he was not able to see his body realistically and identify that a problem exists.
Once he wakes up to the circumstance, he enters the contemplation stage, which means there is awareness. With awareness he can now make a plan. With a plan, action can be taken which eventually leads to maintenance and finally termination. The last stage has a double name. Not only is it termination, it is also re-entry because at times termination doesn’t continue. What if he couldn’t do the maintenance stage? Now he has reentered the process.
There are all kinds of possibilities. Maybe, the first obstacle was getting out of the contemplation stage and making the preparations. Now you’re beginning to see the scope and how we, the universal we, often fail.
The value of this knowledge really is powerful on two fronts. One, we go into change prepared with the information to determine what stage we’re in, if we’re honest, really honest with ourselves. Second, we do not have to berate ourselves if we find ourselves going through the stages a a number of times.
The next time you begin to make a positive change, you will have an advantage! Have fun with the process.
