If you’ve resolved to form a new habit — or break a bad one — this year, it’s likely you’ve already quit.
And it’s understandable: Creating a habit is hard and every time you slip up it feels like a personal failure.
You’re setting yourself up for failure, says Katherine Morgan Scheffler, a psychotherapist and author of “The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control.”
She writes in her book, “Most people operate under the unhelpful assumption that change is a one-step process that is achieved by stopping something or starting something.”
While this framing makes it easier to implement change in the short term, it makes change difficult in the long term.
One way to give a new habit more staying power, says Shuffler, is to treat change like a multi-step process.
Rather than viewing change as one, sweeping movement, Scheffler suggests using the five-stage model of change developed by researchers James Prochaska and Carlo Declement.
This “Unlock” can help people who want to create or quit a habit, but are having trouble doing so.
five stage model of change
1. Premeditation
At this point, you don’t know that you want to make changes and you don’t see yourself doing so in the near future. You are unaware of how your actions are affecting your life and are more focused on “collecting experiences”.
If you’re already looking to make changes, you may have already passed that step.
2. contemplation
Here, you start having repetitive thoughts about your experiences and what is and isn’t working for you. You may be looking at the pros and cons about specific habits. You’re not really feeling the call to action yet.
Most people operate under the unhelpful assumption that change is a one-step process.
Katherine Morgan Schaeffler
3. Preparation
By this stage you have decided that you want to change and you are gathering materials and information to help facilitate that change.
For example, if you want to start running, you can go out and get fitted for running shoes. You can call up a friend who has been running consistently for a few years and ask how they got started.
4. verb
This marks the beginning of behavioral change and is probably the phase you associate with change because it is most visible.
Scheffler writes, “If you’ve made it to this level, it takes a whole hell of a lot of mental energy, time, reflection, work, and emotional risk.” “Whatever comes next, you have a lot to be proud of.”
5. Maintenance
She writes that this step is “crucial and often overlooked”. Making changes is only the beginning of the journey. Now the habit has to be maintained.
Know that you will withdraw. You might run three times a week for a month and then completely lose motivation for the next month. Well, writes Scheffler. Remind yourself that regression is not failure and surround yourself with a support system that encourages you to keep moving forward when you slip.
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