Note: This is Part 1 of a 7 part series. The rest of the series includes:

1. How to Make Lasting Changes
2. From Unconscious to Conscious
3. Contemplation & Procrastination
4. Preparation & Planning to Act
5. 3, 2, 1… Action!
6. Maintaining the Change
7. Summing it All Up

Are you frustrated by trying to make changes in your life or your organization? Do you get fired up to make a change only to regress to your old behavior within weeks, if not days? Are you searching for the secret of making lasting changes that make real improvements?

This struggle to create lasting changes is a chronic problem for people everywhere. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control estimates that 66% of adults in the country are overweight despite a multi-billion dollar weight loss industry. In the corporate world, it is estimated that 65 to 85% of corporate mergers ultimately fail, resulting in staggering costs of failure. With statistics like these, you could get the impression that it is impossible to make any real changes.

The good news is that scientists have begun to seriously study how human beings change and how to make those changes more sticky. One of the leading theories of change right now is called the Transtheoretical Model of Change. Don’t be intimidated by such a technical sounding name. In this series I’m going to translate the Transtheoretical Model into layman’s terms and show how the model can be applied to everyday life to create real change. (If you’re the academic type, you might want to read this journal article that outlines the theory.)

The 5 Stages of Change

Changes that stick go through five distinct phases, which will all be covered in detail in future posts. For now, I’ll introduce each stage, which will paint a picture of a successful change.

1. Precontemplation. In this stage, the person(s) in question are not even considering the idea of changing. There are two possible reasons that people are in the precontemplation mode: 1) They are happy with the current situation, or 2) They don’t believe they are capable of changing the current situation.
2. Contemplation. At this point, people are intending to change in the near future. They may realize that they are unhappy with the current situation, but they may still have some ambivalence about their ability to change it.
3. Preparation. A person in preparation mode plans to implement a change very soon and is taking some steps necessary to make that change. Planning, finding support networks, consulting with outside experts and other proactive behaviors mark this stage.
4. Action. This is the stage that we usually think of as Change with a big “C.” To an outside observer, this is when real change begins, because the three previous changes are often invisible. In the action stage, the people desiring change get down to the hard work of implementing their plan.
5. Maintenance. For many changes, relapse is a real possibility, so the maintenance stage is crucial. This is where a change becomes a habit or standard operating procedure. The maintenance stage can last from a few months of active habit reinforcement all the way until the end of a person’s or organization’s lifecycle – or until the next level of change begins.

Each stage of change has its own unique opportunities and challenges that make the difference between a successful change and just another failed attempt at improvement. In future posts we’ll go through all of the changes in detail and build on each stage to create lasting changes.

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1. Project Management, Change Management and Personal Development: Where is the Crossroads?

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