Jonathan Davis: Hello, everyone.
My name is Jonathan Davis, and I'm here to talk to guys today about Prochaska's stages
of change.
When you think of ... Well, when I think of Prochaska's stages of change, I usually think
of it as a staircase.
When you looking at a staircase, you generally ... if you're deciding to walk up one, whether
it's a staircase at home, a staircase at work, or a staircase at school, you automatically
tell yourself, "I don't really want to walk up those steps, I really would like to use
the elevator."
If you look at me, me being the fat person that I am, I see the first step, and I'm like,
"I really need to go find this elevator.
I really do not want to look at that first step and walk up these stairs."
You got your calf muscles hurting, things of that nature.
Just something you kind of want to avoid.
With that being said, that kind of is how you look at change.
When you think about change, it's generally hard to break those habits and get into the
habit that eventually wants to make you reach that change goal.
James Prochaska, he's a psych professor at the University of Rhode Island, and he came
up with this model in 1997.
The first step that you would get into before you realize that I really don't want to do
it, but the first step that he mentioned is the pre-contemplation stage.
The pre-contemplation stage is generally the stage that you're kind of telling yourself,
"I don't need this change.
I don't need this change," it's more of an external factor.
What I mean by external factor, for example, you may have someone ... if you want to start
getting into an exercise program or something of that nature.
Somebody, from an external view, may tell you, "Hey, Timmy, you need to go ahead and
um ... uh, I think you should work out, I think you should really stay healthy, you
know?
Um, try to avoid the different um, um, um, ailments and stuff like that that may, um,
cause you to get sick or things of that nature.
I think you, you know, um, really need to try to work on that."
In your head, you're like I don't know what Timmy is talking about, I'm fine.
I'm macho man, I don't need to work out or exercise.
You're automatically defeating the purpose, but at the same time, with that external example,
they're already getting you into the stage of the next step, which is contemplation.
Contemplation, abbreviated a little bit for you, contemplation is generally just getting
you the initial thought.
Contemplation is your first initial thought, and you start to think when you walk up to
that next step, you're like maybe Timmy might be a little bit right.
I am a little bit out of shape, I could work on this, I have family members that have also
influenced me as well.
Those external factors lead you to that initial thought of that contemplation stage.
Prochaska went on ahead to go to the next step, which is preparation.
Preparation, for me, is my favorite step, just simply because that's your transition
stage.
You're really starting to get to that process of getting to your higher step, which I'll
mention in a couple of more steps.
Preparation, to me, for all the sports fans, guys that play basketball or play any other
sport, is the pre-season stage.
Pre-season stage, for me, and preparation, to me, is that stage where you get rid of
the Big Mag's and the Whoppers, and you kind of get started with the granola bars and the
protein shakes.
For all the athletes, I definitely believe that you guys can attest to that.
Your preparation for change, to me, is the most important step out of the three and the
two that I'll mention because it's either you go up two more steps and your change is
complete, or you go down and regress and you have to start over again.
Prochaska, again, went on to go to the next, almost the final step, and that's the action
stage.
Action stage is pretty much, again, sports related.
You're in season.
In season, you're getting ready, you're pumped, you're jumping, you're getting your stretching
on.
Kind of getting ready for the task at hand, but your action stage, to me, is, again, the
in season stage.
You're really keeping in mind all of the steps that you had to make in order to get to that
action stage, and now you're putting what you have learned from each step into the act
itself.
The last stage is the maintenance stage.
The maintenance stage is probably not my favorite stage, only because maintenance is very hard.
Maintenance is very hard.
You can easily get to the top and still be looking at the bottom, and it automatically
gives you that cognitive perception of do I really want to stay with this change goal?
The maintenance stage, Prochaska kind of modeled it as being the stage that allows you to realize
your bad habits are behind you and you've reached your change goal.
With that being said, you may ask hey, Jonathan, so what's your point?
My point is that if you generally walk up a set of steps ... Draw a little man here
for you, just to give a little illustration.
You're at the pre-contemplation stage, you really think I don't need this, this is not
for me.
Get a couple of external factors to help you out.
You get to the contemplation stage, that's your initial thought related to your change,
you get into the preparation stage.
You start getting into that transition, realizing a little bit more of what needs to be done.
You get into the action stage, and instead of keeping the realization of what needs to
be done, you get into the actualization of what needs to be done.
Your maintenance stage is the ultimate goal that you set out for yourself from the pre-contemplation
stage all the way up to the changed goal itself.
My name is Jonathan and that is Prochaska's stages of change.