On December 31st we find most of the resolutions
we made twelve months earlier aren’t even remembered, much less started or
accomplished! What’s causes the
recurring phenomenon?
Working with my coaching clients I’ve found one of the principal
culprits that holds them back: They are
not ready to change!
Most resolutions involve changing a habit or behavior. If
you aren’t ready for change, it won’t happen.
There’s a fabulous change model called Prochaska’s Stages of Change that
has five stages. If you are in the first
or second stage of change, its likely you will not live up to your resolutions.
If you are in the first stage of change, called pre-contemplation,
you don’t view the habit or situation you want to break as a real problem. That’s where I find many of my clients. This is when resolutions are written that don’t
reflect what the client thinks is a problem, but what someone does. Take the example of Luci. Her spouse thinks she should exercise more,
but Luci doesn’t believe her weight is a problem. But to appease her spouse Luci makes a
resolution to exercise more. And does
she? Probably not, because Luci doesn’t
believe a real problem exists.
Contemplation is the second stage of change. Here you know there is a problem, but you are
sitting on the fence, weighing pros and cons.
You can stay in the contemplation stage for long periods of time, months
or even years. Moving out of this stage
may require a deep evaluation of values or working with a mentor or role model
to help support you to start planning for change. If Luci were in this stage, she’d be looking
at the pros and cons of more exercise, she might be talking to colleagues or
friends about exercising more, or discussing the value of more exercise with
her physician.
The third stage is preparation. This is where you are really motivated to
take action in the near future, probably within the next month. In this stage you believe you can make a
change. If Luci were in this stage she
would be making plans to join a health club, set up “walking dates” with a
buddy, purchase exercise videos, etc.
When my coaching clients set resolutions and goals I listen
closely to how they describe them. Do I
hear excitement around the goal? Can
they describe why they want to pursue the goal?
Can they say what steps they need to take to achieve the goal? Can they tell me when they will start working
on the first step? Asking these questions allows my clients to listen deeply to
themselves and find the sweet spot where resolutions and goals are going to work
for them, not against them.
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