Contemplation

During the Contemplation Stage, you become more aware of the problem and the potential benefits of actually making the change but for many, the costs still outweigh those benefits. This stage can last for a long time until the potential benefits clearly outweigh the costs. You may "teeter-totter" between the change bringing the best benefit to you and wanting to maintain the status quo. It can also be a stage where people spend their whole lives thinking about the change that they will do "later" and never actually get to make the change.

Characteristics:

• Ambivalence
• Conflicted Emotions
• Not Considering Change until "Later"

Strategies:

• Rethink Your Behavior
• Analyze Yourself and Your Actions
• Assess Risks of Current Behavior
• Explore your current Actions and Results
• Pros and Cons of Behavior Change
  

Your Turn:

Can you identify when you were in this stage for the specific situation you thought of earlier? What do you imagine you were thinking about during this stage?

Notes:

This is the stage where you start to hear people mention they may have a problem. This is also the stage where you begin to become aware that you might have a problem. Contemplation of making a change is necessary because this is the phase in which we begin to examine our core beliefs and our self-narratives emerge. When you are in contemplation, mindset and self-coaching will be crucial to setting you up for success. To make the most of those exercises, the self-coaching can be around current beliefs you have about the pros and cons of what needs to change and the mindset work can be around self-worth.