TBD 75: Being ready to change

🌱🌱 Enter the Growth Zone

Are you reeeeally ready to change?

Growth is a funny thing. Many of us raise a hand quickly when asked if we have a growth mindset or we’re someone who likes growth. Me! Me!! Let’s set a big goal! Let’s gooooo!

Growth means taking some tumbles, venturing into the unknown, asking the dumb questions. Growth takes courage, vulnerability and the commitment to try, fail and get up again. Stepping into new ways of doing or being means doing it badly, being awkward, embarrassed or confused. Not always fun. 

While we may perceive growth as a black and white experience (set goal, take action, celebrate!) there’s much more nuance built into our willingness to change and grow. Psychologists labels different phases of willingness to change as follows:

• 🥊  Pre-contemplation (Rebellious): I don’t need to change!

• 🧠  Contemplation: I might change

• ⏱  Preparation: I will change, but just not now.

• 🏃🏽‍♂️  Action: I am changing.

• 💪  Maintenance: I have changed

Finally leading to termination, if we stick to our change.
Of course, many times we relapse and slide back to our old ways. 

We don’t recognize these phases. This isn’t part of what’s talked about when we set goals. We want to blast through to the goal and leap into a changed self. Let’s jump to “maintenance” with zero fails!

However if you’ve ever tried to quit a bad habit, get sober, speak up more, listen more, drop sugar… you might have noticed that change is not black and white frequently more of a gradient. It’s about being willing to try again (and again) than flipping the old switch to a brand new you.

Managing through change requires support, accountability, and the pre-work that clears the way for your success. It requires being able to be very honest with yourself about if you are committed to change. After all, it’s pretty natural to want something while also being completely uninterested in the work or discomfort required to accomplish it. 

What is it you want to change?

As you think about your big change, notice any thoughts attached to that idea. Here are some things you might be hearing and how they relate to each stage of change:

• Pre-contemplation (Rebellious): 

  • "I don’t want to change and will do it when I’m ready!"
    

• Contemplation:

  • "Others have said I should change, maybe time to consider it?"

  • "I think I want to change, but I’m not sure what to do about it."

  • "I might be ready for some improvement."
    

• Preparation: 

  • "I will change, but just not now."

  • "I’m researching and looking for solutions to my problem."

  • "I need to finish other things, then I’ll address this."
    

• Action: I am changing.

  • "I’ve been actively cutting down on _"

  • "This is hard, but everyday I’m doing it."

  • "I used to _ but now I go to my new habit of _ ."

  • "I messed up for a few days, but I’m back on track and writing down when I’m successful."
    

• Maintenance: I have changed

  • "I’ve made progress, but can I keep it up?"

  • "I met my goal and I’m feeling good. Time to build on this!"

The action phase means you’re actively doing something differently than you did before. Not thinking about it, not researching it, not defending your old ways of being but choosing a new action. 

Growing means taking a tiny part of each day, making a new choice and then demonstrating that new choice through a new action. 

Action could be:

• Speaking when you previously stay silent

• Listening and pausing when you previously spoke up or reacted quickly

• Noticing the moment that you used to put off a task, and instead choosing to dive into the task

• Keeping the commitment to your goal even in the boring parts

• Noticing the old habitual behavior, watching your mind struggle to stretch into a new practice.

Stringing those actions together helps you develop new skills. New skills then give you have new ways of responding. Your new behaviors become new habits. Because you can trust your new behavior, you develop confidence in ways you didn’t before. 

George Leonard’s book Mastery is a classic text about exactly this. It’s a short, accessible book about how we move through the various stages of change and hold ourselves accountable without scaring ourselves off or forcing ourselves to grind through a few short term improvements that fail once we lose the initial enthusiasm. 

Being ready for growth and change is a good thing. But so is getting ready to be ready. Or any stage in between. Knowing where you really are can help you build up the energy and resilience to make the jump.

Coaching can help with this immensely. 

Coaching is often teasing out what someone wants to change in their life, and then getting honest about what stage they are in. Any stage is a fine place to start. From there, we can build practices and habits that move clients into growing and developing sustainable, long-lasting change they desire. 

If you're interested in working with a coach, you can set up time to talk here.