The Stages Of Change

you have gotten seriously better over the years though that's not a joke like there's there's been times where I've kind of like opened the door like sat there waiting and then you don't come in I'm like wow did he figure it out by himself you know it's going to happen yeah just anticipating yeah good I get it once in a while I get it right yeah exactly all right so uh how many Gorillas does it take to change a light bulb how many one gorilla but it takes a ton of light bulbs all right what what did the there's more uh what did the the Buddhist monk say to the hot dog vendor I know this one you do yeah I W say it make me one with everything make me one with everything that one's solid I love that is that a gross that looks like a pheasant like a female that looked like a hand yeah okay so that was almost we were almost going to have to hit pause here so I could fulfill my SEC we go fulfill my goal for the year to shoot one grous this year how many did you say you've seen or shot at oh I've seen like 12 that are that were at least within shooting range and I've shot at six and I missed all of them so that that shows you what kind of a marksman I am but uh well hey but you're trying it's time well spent in the woods for sure yeah yeah that's that's what you got to yeah all right um last joke uh how many psychiatrists does it take wait no let me let me make sure I get this right yeah how many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb just one but the light bulb has to really want to change that's true there's truth in that which leads me into the topic perfectly somehow um I just wanted to ask you about the stages of change yeah and um what they are how how you see people like where do people get hung up um like what what are the breakthroughs from one to another uh so yeah talk talk to me about the stages of change let's talk stages of change that sounds good today um so so everyone's probably heard that topic you know even if you're watching this video you've probably heard of the stages of change it's uh kind of a theory that was produced by a researcher named prohaska or prasa um and came up with five stages of change some people have added a sixth one and we'll go through those really quickly that we we as people generally go through when we're in the process of making any change in our lives this could be big or small big or small it could be yeah and and it's sort of just kind of a natural process that people go through um and and I I personally relate to it a lot and I and I actually use this a lot in my practice of trying to figure out where somebody's at in their own stage of change over a particular thing and then what my Approach interventions are going to need to be as a result of where they're at right so um the first the first stage of change is something called precontemplation and precontemplation is where you have the problem and you don't think you have the problem so let's let's come up with an example of what a problem might be so we can also maybe walk that problem through pick pick one um picking my nose picking your nose pick my nose way too much hypothetically this isn't me what's funny what's funny about that is everybody is disgusted by by others picking their nose and and it's researched you know proven that everybody picks their nose no don't judge me so everybody who's watching this is like yeah he's a nose picker and they're like yeah I did in my car yesterday right like but they don't want to admit that they they're like yeah no I didn't because they're not aware of it but they did it so okay perfect so so the nose picking um the precontemplative person doesn't even know that they pick their nose they they you know it's like you could we could add a different one like drinking let's say it's like I don't have a problem like yeah I drink alcohol but I don't have a problem it's not a problem so the pre-contemplative person has a problem but doesn't think or know that they have a problem they're totally in a place of ignorance and unawareness right denial your peer toy like watching Finding Nemo and he goes to that you know 12ep meeting with the sharks and he's like says they all look at each other like denial you know like that's that's precontemplation you know okay does it have to be that you have a problem um yeah or whatever the changes is that you're trying to make right yeah so if there's a change that needs to be made it's probably because there's something that's not effective or not working in your life right that need that needs to change um so the second stage is called contemplation and this is where something happens in our life or a series of things goes on in our life where we start to become aware of the fact that there's something that needs to change like oh I it's like that awareness piece of I'm a nose picker like oh like I drink too much to the point that I ended up with a DUI or to the point that my my spouse wants to leave me or my kids don't want to be around me anymore or I just lashed out in anger because of my alcohol or it's like oh I I'm starting to see that I have a problem my eyes are now opened so to speak right um so it's but but I'm not going to do anything about it yet I'm not ready to do anything about it yet but at least I know that yeah if I'm honest with myself in a quiet moment there's a problem so awareness yeah it's it's simple awareness of the problem itself um that's a big gap though between awareness and actual change and there's basically a few other steps to get there the third step is now that I know and I become aware I'm in contemplation the next step of change is called preparation and that's where I kind of get everything ready I'm starting my you know I starting Lean Forward into I need to do something about this or you know and I'm so I'm going to get stuff ready to change you know so um I don't know what to I don't know what preparation would be with nose picking you know okay let's go with alcohol the threat of alcohol I'll think about no picking for my friend so so with alcohol now it's like I'm not ready to fully change yet I'm still going to go and I'm going to drink but I might be starting to maybe not call my friends quite as much that I would go drink with or I'm starting to kind of make plans for trying to convince myself I'll only drink one when I go out tonight or um I'm starting to kind of set things up that would allow me to step off into this new change that I need to make but I'm not quite ready to make it yet you know I always use the example with people at New Year's who are going to lose 30 lbs for some reason Before Christmas they go out and buy three new workout outfits and get a gym membership um that's preparation like they never actually use the gym membership and they wear the workout clothes to look cool with their friends when they're talking about me right now felt like a low blow no not at all I've never seen you in workout clothes like I see you this I have the outfits at home all right they still have tags on them yeah so that's that's preparation and then preparation moves into what we call action action is the next step of change and action is where we actually intentionally start to try to move towards the change where can make I stop going to the bars or I stop you know stopping by the the gas station to grab a cold one on the way home um with my drinking I actually make an attempt at the change and what most people get discouraged by is that many times we bounce between contemplation and action and preparation many times ping pong in yeah I think with like addictions the research says that it takes about 14 actual concerted efforts to overcome an addiction and people get burned out and tired in all of that right so I know I've got a problem I'm going to get ready to try to stop I try to stop I fail then I go back into contemplation or Preparation and then I it's like in essence it's it's it's almost like the equivalent of a salmon trying to jump a waterfall it tries it fails it lays in the pool for a while but it knows that if it wants to feel the measure of its creation it's going to have to try that waterfall again right and So eventually it tries and it fails and then it rests in the pool and then it tries and eventually somehow through some sheer Act of Will and through practice and through development of strength it gets up the waterfall and then it gets to feel the measure of its creation yeah and it goes and dies and then after it feels the measure of its creation it's completed a full wholehearted life it can move on okay to sh right so um so that's so that's kind of the the pattern that happens is we move through preparation contemplation preparation action many times s and then after we get through action and it's actually become a new habit and started to be a change it's called maintenance and that's where we then are living in our new state with our new superpower so to speak and and we don't have to work really hard at it anymore because we have the habits established and now that the Power of Habit is in play we're we're less likely to fall back and then the last stages is that sometimes we do fall back that's called relapse and relapse might send us back in So if I'm trying to you know eat healthy and I do really really well up until Thanksgiving and then thanks between thanks between Thanksgiving and the first of the year all it's No Holds Barred you know it's like that's relapse you know you mean a month from that yeah exactly and then and then and then I'm planning on January 1st getting back into my habit and sometimes it's actually really difficult to reestablish the habit but um but that's but that's the way the stages of change work and what's cool about that is it kind of outlines what's similar with like the hero's journey and the hero's journey is you start in a certain place you're confronted with challenges and obstacles you have to face the demon go through the cave conquer the dragon and then after you conquer the dragon you come you get a new superpower you're more equipped in some way and then you return to your normal life but you're now elevated and then of course something else will come along this is recovery work this is recovery is now there's a new challenge now there's a new task now there's a new change I'm going to just follow the same iteration of the of what I just did over a new ch Challenge and that's the beauty of life right you know I was just thinking about one of our our buddies who he he's getting the crap kicked out of him um just in his relationship trying to figure out how to hold space and I I sent him a message the other uh yesterday I was just like hey man I'm thinking about you sorry for all the crap you're going through uh I hope I hope you're able to keep your head up and keep moving through it um and he was like it's just funny because you know in the past I used to actually do things wrong and then almost deserve the butt kicking and the tongue lashing that my spouse is giving me and now I haven't done that stuff in a long time and I feel like I'm doing good in my recovery and I still take the beating it it feels weird it feels wrong I'm like yeah yeah well it probably it probably is yeah probably is and you gave him some counsel you know of like how to adjust and pivot and and it's like what you're saying though it's like you go through all those steps for one area of your life and then you make it through however long it takes you month years um and then the new challenge ready ready waiting you know yeah it's like well like let's take that example I don't know exactly you're talking about but you know it's it's likely I overcame my addictions I'm no longer acting out in those things and I feel good about myself and now I'm and now I'm looking at my relationship that's been damaged as a result of those things and now I have a new task of how do I balance being authentic while keeping boundaries while learning to show empathy like whoa those are three new changes I've got to like take on and I'm going to am I ready to do that you know and then when I do it I'm probably going to do it in kind of a really messy awkward clunky kind of a way and if I don't see that as part of the process I'll give up right but if I'm like no it's this is practice I'm going to get good atemp empathy now and I'm going to get good at boundaries now when that guy starts to get really good at those things it will elicit a change in his relationship either his partner will just see his strength and want to come along or she won't be ready for the change that's happening in her stages of change and she'll still be in precontemplation or contemplation and then there will be a gap that will start to form and that Gap will naturally put pressure on the relationship to either come back together for better or worse or it'll break and then they'll go on their way and continue to follow their own cycles of change yeah you know um all right so I'm curious about uh what are you prec contemplating well I don't know like you you should tell me what I'm pre contemplating cuz I don't know that was the setup all right there's a few things you suck at um no what okay what one step further what about contemplative like is there anything that you're like I'm aware of this thing and I just haven't quite been ready to move on it you know like where are you at yeah there's actually well right when you speak up there's two things that are kind of on my mind right now I maybe three things but the first one is is that I've been feeling um for several months now I've been feeling kind of this personal press urge to actually to restudy and reread the Book of Mormon and I've been kind of holding off on it for some reason I don't know what it's been holding me back but uh I've been feeling like I need to go dive into that again and to like really understand it again and kind of glean some new principles every time I read any type of scripture especially the New Testament or the Book of Mormon when I read it with a set of fresh eyes I see all sorts of things that apply to my to my work and my mission that's that sort of kind of rise out come out and so I think I've been feeling the need for that and I don't know what's holding me back on that yet I haven't figured that one out yet the the the second thing that I've been contemplating for a very long time for probably more than a year is that H part of my identity is is that I'm an athlete and I kind of gave it up after I have my hips replaced and I'm kind of gone into like this wo is me pouting I stayed just in good enough shape to go do some hunting and stuff but you can see like I've seen you run too yeah it's not pretty like it used to be it's not pretty at all I literally look like a 65-year-old man Shuffle when I run I do that's why I like to hike because you can't see it quite as bad you still see it right but but my own physical health I've kind of had this like goal to get back into the best physical shape I can currently be in and to do two things one is to complete some type of of an event uh you know you know Triathlon or some other kind of a race again just to show that I can do that and work through the hard thing and then also it's been a long time since I've had a six-pack and as an old man now you know I'm in my mid-40s or whatever like got they got more of a party Ball but but I've been I've been thinking you know like it would take real work and it would take real commitment and it would take all the principles that I teach in my practice for me to actually commit to the you know 46y old version of a six-pack and I know what's holding me back on that is is that I know it's going to be sacrifice and pain work actual work like real work and so I keep like putting it off until till the first of the year you're that guy I am that guy so yeah so what what about you what are what are your kind of things that you're staging on right now well okay so we were I was asking like does it have to be a problem per se and on the way up here you know one of the things that I was asking you about was hunting like where do you hit a deer exactly um to knock it down you know and I've I've been interested in archery for probably my whole life just as a background like oh that's so cool have this kind of you know think about any of the Robin Hood like yeah Robin Hood the cartoon with the fox and that my favorite one yeah made Marion and and like that that whole movie just had me smitten like um I was in love with her as probably as much as I was in love with him and uh and then you know legalist and and the whole Lord of the Rings series seeing people just dropping arrows like just kind of built up this fantasy in my head romanticizing how cool it would be to be good at that thing and then the more that I thought and uh the last one is uh Hunger Games cat man she's she's legit um but I that's all the the kind of romanticized stuff and then the the practicality of it is a gun would be way easier to use to kill it it is um and to probably get skilled with enough you know to do certain things or if you're thinking about uh home protection like it's not ideal to be like you're not going to be like legalist being able to shoot three arrows every 10 seconds so not not practical in that sense but but on the other hand like the the Allure to me I think is the amount of work and commitment that it would take to actually become effective masterful yeah masterful in it and so that's that's something that I've I've just I've been contemplating for a while and I've just started taking steps steps towards uh actually doing the thing so you know looking up where I can go to shoot during the winter um like how guys shoot when it's cold outside actually going out and trying to shoot um the you know looking up YouTube videos about hunting with Trad bows uh and the the you know so I'm immersed in that right now on the one hand and then maybe um one there's there's probably three that I'm going to bring up so archery is one um music is another one that's a whole area that I the I feel called to to work on it and simultaneously I feel totally inept like it's that's like almost more of a therapeutic thing than it is a hobby thing for you yes yeah truly like overcoming your fears and your false agreements and everything like that where archery it's like I just I just need to go practice it I I don't about it but with music there 's some roadblocks and it's like I I feel like you were saying some doubt self-doubt and I'm trying to push through that and and do some learning um do some practicing and uh and get better at it and so I have been I think I'm out of contemplative I'm in to the action stage right now and I'm doing some work and and finding some fulfillment in it um I this might seem stupid but but one of the things that I love about music is that it's so easy Once I can get into it I get lost you can get immersed totally lost yeah um I last night was like I'm going to work on music for 30 minutes I'm dead tired I had a hard time getting upstairs and going to work on it uh finally get to the the desk set up and I'm starting to do some things and I I like get in this flow where I'm like oh this is just like lights are going off and like I'm coming up with ideas of like how to arrange things and and anyway at like two hours pass and I'm sitting there like I look at the clock I'm like oh my goodness I hear the door open Chelsea comes in from class you know at night and I it blew my mind that I'd spent that much time doing that stuff getting lost in it yeah so I think that that was a a a feeling to me of God's calling me to do this work and not work but um is self-work I'll call sure and at the same time um I think I need to figure out how to learn some balance so yeah that's that's that's where I'm at in the action mode and then the last thing is um kind of getting more committed and invested in my marital relationship um I I love my wife I've been learning about uh our love languages and and um Learning About Love Languages and identifying what hers are uh she we had a really cool discussion the other day about um you know what we saw in the other person and and she we we even did this uh quiz on uh try.com it's one I'd recommend and learned that one of my love languages is just practicality like I'm I'm very I just need a practical love like just be practical like the dishes are uh dirty the dishwasher is full and clean and she committed to cleaning like taking the dishes out of the dishwasher the other day I came home opened the dishwasher expecting it to be full of clean dishes and she' already taking them out and I was like felt good I felt love I felt Love Actually and um that might seem so not romantic or you know whatever but at the same time like it it was perfect for me so I'm trying to figure out how to uh I know one thing for her just give her a massage she's got this one knot that we have not been able to shoulder so I'm yeah I feel like I'm in preparation a little bit there and a little bit in action and anyway just kind of it sounds like across all three of those you know it's like the archery one is you're sort of moving into more and more action you've been in like preparation action there with with your wife it sounds like there's different elements of you that are across anywhere from you know contemplation to preparation and action you're you're doing a lot of kind of all three of those things in that in that realm of relationship and then in your music it sounds like you're pressing yourself into action you spend a lot of time in in preparation well you've already done a lot of the preparation you spend a lot of time in contemplation and then you push yourself into action when you're there you actually really enjoy it right yes exactly I mean that's that's it exactly um what one question I have for you is how how do people move through from one thing to the next as seamlessly as possible or is is it that it always has to be cumbersome like one of the biggest questions uh or challenges probably is motivation yeah right so how how does somebody acquire the motivation to move through those things is that even the right way of looking at it well I think that's a decent way to look at it you know um if we if we think about the process it's going to be clunky no matter what because change is different and different takes time of that kind of messy middle part of doing something awkwardly until you're good at it right um but the person who has the attitude of the growth mindset sees that as a necessary part of the change which allows them to stay committed to it where the person who feels betrayed by it like oh I was making this change and all of a sudden it's too hard they give up on it more and so they they take more time they spend more time in that contemplative State rather than the action state so the ability to stay committed to the process and see it as a process allows people to stay in it and move through it more seamlessly right so so working really hard on developing the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset is a really important thing we could do a whole another episode on on that at some point um staying committed to it and what's interesting about motivation is that and we've said this all the time but motivation comes after the action we always think we're waiting to get motivated and then we'll go do something and that does happen sometimes but if we can figure out how to see and set up little winds along the way so instead of the big Target that I didn't hit man I got this little thing done today that's a win once I've once I've done something and I Notch a little win winning produces motivation so maybe I didn't wasn't able to stop drinking all the way this week but you know you know what I went 5 days without stopping at the gas station I'm committed to that I'm going to I'm going to make more days in a row that I have not stopping at the gas station than I did right that's a win I'm going to stay committed to the process and little winds stack on top of each other and allow you to kind of stay motivated more often even though motivation leaves sometimes right um we also understanding motivation and and that that can't be the sustainable fuel source motivation is like the bonus fuel you get it's like the it's like when you play a video game and you get to hit the jetpack for a second it's like yeah the star when you play like Super Mario Brothers like go-karts or what whatever they're call Mario Kart right like that's that's motivation and the commitment is to continue to press forward when there is no mo motivation and uh a lot of people have a hard time with that [Music] naturally [Music]