Stages of readiness to change

Coaches often get to work with clients who are at varying levels of readiness and motivation to change.  At some stage in the coaching relationship, the client will experience highs and lows in motivation.  It’s the role of the coach to identify and understand this process and use the right strategies and techniques to assist the client move forward and maintain their progress.

It’s also important to evaluate a person's readiness to change before starting the proposed coaching program.  Coaching that is not aligned with the readiness of the individual to change will be less likely to succeed. Also, coaching programs that try to move a person too quickly through the stages of change are more likely to create resistance that will impede behavioural change. For example, if you are trying to get a person to quit smoking, it is essential to know where the person is at in terms of their readiness to cease smoking. A person who is not even thinking about quitting is generally not ready to receive information about specific smoking cessation tools. In this case, focusing the intervention on smoking cessation tools sends the message that the coach is not really listening. This may not only damage rapport but can also make the person even more resistant to quitting smoking. A more stage-specific intervention with this person would be to try to get the person to think about quitting.

Once the person reaches the contemplation stages, additional strategies can be employed to continue to move the client through the stages of behavioural change. Anything that moves a client along the continuum toward making a positive change should be viewed as a success. Employing stage specific interventions will decrease the coach’s frustration by lessening the unrealistic expectation that change will occur with a single intervention.

Two major factors that have been found to affect a person's readiness to change are importance and self-efficacy. Importance is determined by what value a person places on making the change. Self-efficacy is a person's belief or confidence in their ability to succeed at making the change. Depending on the scenario, people may exhibit different levels of importance and self-efficacy. For example, a person who is overweight may be convinced of the importance of losing weight but have a low level of confidence based on previous failure to lose weight or keep weight off. A person who is newly diagnosed with hypertension may be confident that they can take a pill to lower blood pressure but are not convinced of the importance of this action.

A deficiency in either importance or self-efficacy can lead to a person's unwillingness to commit to change. There are five stages of readiness towards behavioural change: 

Stage 1: Pre-Contemplation 

The earliest stage of change is known as pre-contemplation. During the pre-contemplation stage, people are not considering a change. They are often described as ‘in denial’ due to claims that their behaviour is not a problem. Clients in this stage may feel resigned to their current state or believe that they have no control over their behaviour. In some cases, they do not understand that their behaviour is damaging or they are under-informed about the consequences of their actions.

Stage 2: Contemplation

During this stage, clients become aware of the potential benefits of making a change but the costs tend to stand out even more. This cost-benefit tension creates a strong sense of ambivalence about changing. Because of this uncertainty, the contemplation stage of change can last months or even years. In fact, many people never make it past the contemplation phase. During this stage, clients may view change as a process of giving something up rather than as a means of gaining emotional, mental or physical benefits.

Stage 3: Preparation

During this stage, clients begin to make small changes to prepare for the larger, possibly life-changing, event. For example, if losing weight is their goal, they might switch to lower-fat foods. If their goal is to quit smoking, they might start to smoke less each day. They might also take some sort of direct action such as consulting a hypnotherapist, joining a health club or reading self-help books. Coaches should encourage clients in the preparation stage to gather as much information as they can about alternate behavioural choices, and try some of them out to see which approach may work best for them.

Stage 4: Action

During the fourth stage of change, people begin to take direct action in order to accomplish their goals. Often times, resolutions fail because the previous steps have not been given enough thought or time. For example, many people make a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight and immediately start a new exercise regimen, begin eating a healthier diet and cut back on snacks. These definitive steps are vital to success, but these efforts are often abandoned in a matter of weeks because the previous steps have been overlooked. Reinforcement and support are extremely important in helping maintain positive steps toward change.

Stage 5: Maintenance

The maintenance phase involves successfully avoiding former behaviours and continuing to enact the new behaviours. During this stage, clients become more assured that they will be able to manage their change. For example, they could try replacing old habits with more positive actions and reward themself when they are able to successfully avoid a relapse.  Relapses are reasonably common and a part of the process of making a lifelong change. If your client can consistently maintain the change for 21 days, they are well on their way to changing that behaviour forever. The way to manage relapses is to get people back to the action stage as soon as possible. In this way the relapse can be seen as a normal part of the change process, not something that is embarrassing or shameful.

This modified excerpt is taken from the book “Positive Psychology Coaching by Dr Susanne Knowles which is available from www.amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com.  Book Reviews and a Book Trainer are available on www.susanne.knowles.com.