«CHANGE»

        It is not easy to change. If it were there would be no need to have a cycle of New Year’s days, every twelve months, year after year. Those of us who are getting older can probably look back on a series of resolutions ranging from the ice creams we were not going to eat, to the early morning gym programmes which we absolutely would attend. So what is it that stops us from becoming paragons of all that is virtuous? Probably it is a great number of things ranging from our beliefs and self-perceptions, expectations, motivation, will-power through to habit-strength. At all stages of our life there are forces which provoke and encourage change and those which retard it.

When working with smokers who were attempting to give up the habit James Prochaska and Carlo Diclemente noticed that some clients had more success than others. In 1982 they developed a model of change which postulated five stages in the process. These five stages can be depicted as segments in a circle and this Wheel of Change Model has subsequently been applied to all areas of life from addictions to health promoting behaviours.

The stages range from a blissful unawareness that we have a problem at all, through a gradual dawning on us of our difficulties and the step-wise orientation to ways in which change could occur. Stage three sees us signing up at a gym or shovelling down the last of the ice-cream preparatory to starting in on the new diet. By the fourth or action phase we are throwing ourselves into “the new me” with a vengeance. But finally by the fifth, the motivation is beginning to flag, the old habit is nibbling holes in our will-power and we are wondering why we are putting ourselves through this ordeal anyway – after all it’s nearly February!

Apathy and those retarding forces build up until the point of relapse. Part of us feels relieved that the pressure is off and part of us feels ashamed that we have failed yet again. So that’s it until next year. But does it have to be?

• Those guilt feelings are really not much help. We need to recognize that the relapse is normal and part of the cycle of change.
• We can identify the factors retarding change and we can attempt to put weight onto those factors that encourage change.
• We can remind ourselves that as an individual we have the responsibility for making our own choices and carrying them through.
• We can look at our ambivalent feelings and find greater clarity.
• We can remind ourselves of all the reasons we considered change in the first place.
• Furthermore, if one way has not worked, we can devise another action plan which is more effective. Who has control here anyway?
• And above all we need to believe that change is possible and we can achieve it!

Mind Matters is a regular Times column by Pamela Glyn, a Howick-based psychologist. Tel/Fax: 535-2224. Email: glynpsy@pl.net Web site: www.glyn-psychology.co.nz