Five Stages People Move Through Emotionally When Changing Behavior
This stage is the most exciting stage. You imagine the benefits but have not experienced any of the costs. Uninformed optimism sits above the line the land of positive emotion. You see all of the benefits of the change and none of the downside. You brainstorm and strategize for the future.
Uninformed optimism doesn’t usually last long. As you learn the reality of what it takes to change, positive emotions quickly sour with pessimism starting to set in. This stage is a shift to a negative emotional state. Here, the benefits don’t seem as real, important, or immediate, and the costs of the change are apparent. People question if the change is really worth the effort. You start looking for reasons to abandon the effort. But it gets worse.
The lowest point of the emotional cycle is the entrance into the valley of despair. This is when many people give up. The pain of change is felt and the benefits seem far away and unimportant. The quickest way to end the discomfort is to quit and go back to the way you did things before the change was introduced. The past doesn’t seem so bad at this stage.
BUT If you are able to push through, stay the course, persevere, and keep the compelling future vision of what you want to achieve; you will advance to Stage 4.
The fourth stage is informed optimism. The possibility of success increases and you are back in the positive emotional zone. The benefits of your actions are starting to bear fruit and the cost of change is feeling worth it. The key here is not to stop but to keep going.
Success and fulfillment is the final stage of the Emotional Cycle of Change. Here, the benefits of your new behaviors are fully experienced and the cost of change is perceived now as worth it. The actions that were once difficult and uncomfortable are now routine.
The sad truth is that 99% of us when we hit the Valley of Despair, will veer off and try something new, and then Predictably repeat Stages 1,2 & 3 again; and when that doesn’t work, and find ourselves again in the Valley of Despair, you guessed it, we will try something else again (rinse & repeat) versus pushing through to Stage 4, and this is Predictable!!!
I believe this is because we are trying to make these changes on our own, similar to trying to paddle a canoe by ourselves upstream. But what if you were part of a community that when you hit the inevitable Valley of Despair, supported and encouraged you to keep going when things got hard? A community that had you view each challenge and obstacle as a way of getting you closer to your goals instead of a reason to veer off course and start over? Pushing through the doubts and discomfort and continuing to put one foot in front of the other as you break through onto Stage 4 of Informed Optimism.
This is my vision; creating a Playing to Win Together Community so we; “Don’t Let Doubt Take Us Out”, as we move past the Valley of Despair in whatever it is we want to accomplish!