Changing For Good!

This the the title from the 1994 book by James Prochaska, Ph.D., John Norcross Ph.D., Carlo Diclemente, Ph.D. To sum it up as succinctly as I can, this book reflects the 5 year+ study by these men on uncovering the "secret" to successful personal change. They studied more than 1,ooo "self changers" who were able to permanently alter their lives without psychotherapy.

God knows I love science, which is probably one of the reasons I liked the SuperFoods books so much. No made up bullshit, no false assumptions, no fantastic promises, just straight forward research and assessment. These three men, in doing research on preventing life threatening diseases, brought on by human behavior such as alcoholism, smoking and over-eating, found a remarkable thing; there are actual stages  and processes that we all must go through when making a change and breaking a bad habit, and the reason many of us fail to succeed is that we get stuck in one of these stages or processes, and need a little help getting over the hump. The example below is based on their graphic from p.54 of the book. The stages are located on top and under them the process are shown as they begin and end in certain stages.

Precontemplation --- Contemplation --- Preparation --- Action --- Maintenance ---Termination

            consciousness - raising-------------|

             social liberation ----------------------------------------------------|

                                                               emotional arousal-----------|

                                                               self-reevaluation-------------|

                                                                                                         commitment--------------------------|

                                                                                                                              reward---------------------|

                                                                                                                              countering----------------|

                                                                                                                              environment control---|

                                                                                                                              helping relationships---|

According to the authors, and backed up by study after study, everyone goes through this process, often times without even being aware of it. For the most part they are fairly obvious right? I mean at first glance one might say "duh, of course"!  But isn't it nice to know that there is a process, not madness, and that you can move through it? Can you guess which stage I am stuck at? After reading the book I can clearly see that I am stuck between contemplation and preperation, because I lack what I need to do for the commitment.

As the authors discuss each stage and process in the book, they provide a small 5 question self assessment to see if you are ready to go to the next stage. Just by reading the book I could see that I keep getting stuck in contemplation and preparation, and the self-test provided only backed that up. I failed to pass the "commitment test", and anyone reading my blog knows that is true! So even in my own case, I can validate the authors findings.

Most of you know how I have gone back and forth throughout the blog, how I have continually searched for answers as to why, and when I think I have it figured out I come up with a plan, and  I never begin that plan or at least never maintain that plan. I can't tell you what a RELIEF it was to know that I was not NUTS, only a bit stuck. I also can't tell you what a RELIEF it was to know that all my work on my self was not in vain, in fact it is part of the process, I just took it way too far, and I did it because I could not commit to the plan or the changes. In fact many of my own discoveries and revelations about myself were even in the book, I was on the right track.

What I didn't realize is that for me, the pros of staying fat were actually not enough to overcome the pros of being fit, and until that happens, I am not going to be able to go forward very far.

So, I know what I have to work on, and the authors have included some examples and techniques for getting over the hump in each stage, but it is work, and I will most likely do that work here at FatBlogger.

Next post... I will begin to discuss each stage and process.

PS - I thought Typepad was WYSIWYG? It is anything but! I had to re-post this thing about 5 times before "what you see is what you get"!

Comments

[Krista]

It sounds like a GREAT book! Thanks for sharing it and how it is helping. I may check it out too. Keep us posted on the process!

[Margaret]

What did it look like? I think knowing that we are normal, and working through issues in order is always comforting. NOW comes the hard part--action!!

[Denise]

I'm so glad that what you're ready resonates with you. It's so true that so much of our success (or lack thereof) rests with the fact that our desire to change must be greater than our desire to stay the same. Sometimes it's tough to figure out which one has the greater desire plus you also have to figure out how to "tip the scales" to the side of change, too, and that's where I seem to get caught up.