Please Don’t Call Me About Starting Therapy If It’s Your New Year’s Resolution.
Call Me When You’re Ready to Resolve To Change Your Life
The Problem With New Year’s Resolutions
In an online group I belong to, there was a recent discussion about resolutions for the 2022 New Year. There were the usual resolutions to lose weight, stop smoking, cut back on drinking, join a gym, begin therapy, etc. Many people also spoke about having made these same resolutions year after year. And then, the inevitable “quitting smoking is easy, I’ve done it 100 times.” So what’s going on here? Why don’t these resolutions result in lasting change? Let’s take a look at the problem with New Year’s resolutions.
Why Do So Many New Year’s Resolutions Fail?
The problem with most New Year’s resolutions is that there’s nothing magical about the date. Outside of it being the start of a new calendar and the inevitable struggle for the first few weeks to write correct dates, there’s really nothing special about January 1st. New Year’s resolutions are all about symbolism, and once January first passes, symbolism doesn’t do much to sustain any change.
The truth is, change doesn’t happen because of a date, or through luck. It happens when we resolve to change our behavior and then make a detailed plan to do so.
So, How Do I Make Changes Then?
James Prochaska and Carlo C DiClemente are psychologists whose work studying how people change intentionally has revolutionized the field of addiction treatment. They co-developed and refined, over nearly forty years, the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) of behavior change. The transtheoretical model explains both how people develop unwanted behaviors and how they change them. Prochaska and DiClemente identified that people pass through predictable stages when making intentional changes to their behavior. These are known as Stages of Change.
The Stages of Change
Intentional change, as opposed to change forced upon oneself, follows a logical, linear sequence. Each stage in the change process is defined by clear tasks and goals that must be completed to successfully move to the next stage. A skilled therapist can help you move through these stages.
Precontemplation
Precontemplation is the stage in which an individual has little or no interest in change due mainly to the inability to see the need for change. Staying in precontemplation is about maintaining the status quo. The goal of precontemplation is to consider the need for change. If you’re making resolutions to change your behavior, Congratulations! You’ve already moved through this first stage.
Contemplation
Contemplation is the stage in which an individual examines their current problem behavior, and their potential to change that unwanted behavior. Some people move swiftly through contemplation, some people get stuck there for years. To put it briefly, the goal of completing contemplation is to resolve ambivalence about changing behavior.
Preparation
Preparation involves making a commitment to the desired change and developing a plan and strategy to implement that change. This is a great time to do research about your new desired lifestyle and planning the steps to get there. The goal of preparation is to develop an action plan that can be implemented in the near future.
Action
The Action stage is where the individual actually takes steps to change their unwanted behavior and practices their new more desirable behaviors. The goal is taking corrective action to change the undesirable behavior. The new behavior is practiced and refined for about six months.
Maintenance
Maintenance involves the steps to sustain the new behavior and integrate it into their desired lifestyle. The goal of maintenance is sustained replacement of the old behavior with new behaviors.
Each of these stages present unique tasks and goals. A skilled therapist who has specialized training in the transtheoretical model guides you through the process of completing the tasks and goals necessary to move forward.
How Careful Planning Increases Your Odds Of Success
Mary’s Story
A client I worked with, we’ll call her Mary, decided to begin therapy after her doctor wanted to prescribe her a medication to bring her blood sugar under control. Mary was adamant about not taking medication because of the side effects and insisted she would change her diet, lose weight and exercise more. Her doctor, after hearing the same thing most of her patients say when presented with the health risks of their weight told her “sure, that sounds great and let’s make an appointment for three months to see how you’re doing.”
Mary was pretty shaken up by the doctor’s insistence on medication. She had tried dieting many times before. Mary would lose weight, but always put it back on within a year.
Mary Knew She Needed To Change, She Just Didn’t Know How
During our first session, it became obvious that Mary was clearly well into the contemplation stage. She recognized that previously she was never really committed to a new healthy lifestyle. She now faced a serious consequence to not committing to a healthy lifestyle which wasn’t the case previously. Her lab work was incontrovertible proof to her that she needed to think about changing her lifestyle. Having completed the tasks and goals of precontemplation, Mary was ready to make an honest appraisal of her current behaviors and look at the actual steps necessary to change those behaviors.
I suggested to Mary that we use a tool called a decisional balance, a simple listing of the pros and cons of both the current behavior and the desired new behavior.
Pros of Healthy Lifestyle: + Don’t have to start medicine for blood sugar + Won’t have to worry about diabetes + Feel better about self + Fit into favorite clothes | Cons of Healthy Lifestyle: – “I like sweets. A lot” – Have to maintain lifestyle – Don’t like exercising |
Pros of Current Lifestyle: + It’s easier + Enjoy going out to eat with friends + It’s fall, and when it’s cold I just want to curl up with a blanket and comfort food. | Cons of Current Lifestyle: – A definite pattern of declining health – Have to make changes anyway eventually |
The Decisional Balance
The pros of change were easy, Mary didn’t want to begin down the slippery slope towards needing insulin every day. In her 20’s Mary was very health conscious, walked every day, and even tried being a vegetarian for a year or so. Over the years Mary became ambivalent about taking care of her health. She had stopped eating salads for lunch, started getting takeout for dinner more, usually heavy on carbohydrates and overindulged her sweet tooth. Following a difficult recovery from a broken foot, she lost interest in walking.
Mary took a serious look at the pluses and minuses of both doing something about her blood sugar and not doing something about it. She decided that the health risks were no longer abstract threats about the future from her doctor. Mary realized she didn’t need a diet, she needed to develop a new lifestyle. While she didn’t look forward to cutting way back on carbs, she had done it before, so she knew she could do it again. Previously, Mary ate a lot healthier and still had a lot of her favorite recipes that would make getting started easier.
Making New Year’s Resolutions Doesn’t Make You Want to Change
Through therapy, Mary realized she was actually uncomfortable with change and in many ways was quite happy with the life she was living. The fact was she enjoyed being able to go out to eat with friends and not have to worry about if there was something she could eat on the menu. Mary didn’t want to be seen as being high maintenance to her friends, none of whom she thought had to worry about their what they ate. Mary loathed the idea of joining a gym, she was quite settled with her sedentary lifestyle.
Mary realized she was actually uncomfortable with change and in many ways was quite happy with the life she was living.
We looked at Mary’s ambivalence about change, and listed what specific behaviors she wanted to change. We looked at her present lifestyle, and the barriers to change she had built in to protect it. Mary discussed the challenges that she struggled with in previous attempts at dieting. As a therapist, my role was using the techniques of motivational enhancement to guide Mary towards the decision she was struggling to make.
The Motivational Tipping Point
Mary decided her life had reached a tipping point. She either changed the way she was living, cutting way back on carbs and junk food and limiting portion sizes or her blood sugar would keep rising. Mary knew, from experience, that dietary changes weren’t enough to take off the 25 lbs her doctor was insisting on. Even though it was December and cold, she’d find a way to exercise, either at home, or at a gym.
I congratulated Mary on completing the preparation stage, and now, with a full rational understanding of the problem, a genuine commitment to change, and the motivation to get started, we worked on a plan. Because Mary had taken the time to plan to do something different, and specific, she wasn’t doomed to repeat the mistakes she kept making in the past. She was committed to the change and felt confident in her ability to make those changes. She had broken a seemingly insurmountable problem into small steps that didn’t seem so daunting.
The truth is, change doesn’t happen because of a date, or through luck. It happens when we resolve to change our behavior and then make a detailed plan to do so.
Are You Ready To Make Real Change, Not Just Make Resolutions?
If you’re tired of making and breaking the same old New Year’s Resolutions, maybe it’s time to get started on building your resolution to change. If you know you need to start, but don’t know how, call me at 844.321.8777. For more information about me, or my Lancaster and Berks County based counseling practices, see my website, www.travelerspsych.com
