The Cycle of Change (WT778)

The Cycle of Change (WT778)

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by Shirley Dalton | 23 May, 2025 | Blog, Business, Mindset

WT 778 Stages of Change Diagram

Are you thinking about changing something or are you wanting prospective clients to purchase a product of service?

If so, you might be interested to know a little bit about the process we go through when we want to change something in our lives.

In the late 1970s, James Prochaska, a psychologist interested in psychotherapy outcomes, noticed a disconnect in treatment approaches—particularly around behaviour change (e.g., quitting smoking, substance use). Traditional models assumed that people were ready to change, and that all they needed was the right intervention.

But many clients weren’t ready, and even effective therapies failed if used at the wrong time. So Prochaska posed a deeper question:

“What actually happens when people change on their own, without therapy?”

He & DiClemente discovered that people don’t change all at once—they go through a predictable, cyclical process of readiness. And importantly, each stage of change requires different support and messaging.

By studying how people prepare for and attempt change (especially self-changers), they mapped out a non-linear, six-stage process:

  1. Precontemplation – No intention to change
  2. Contemplation – Considering change
  3. Preparation – Planning to act soon
  4. Action – Actively making change
  5. Maintenance – Sustaining change
  6. (Later added) Termination – Complete transformation (for some behaviours)

They published this in their 1983 paper, integrating insights from clinical psychology, behavioural science, and public health, hence it was known as The Transtheoretical Model. (Cycle or Stages of Change is much easier.)

Knowing this can help you identify where you’re at with your own readiness to change as well as where your prospective clients might be. It’s also useful for Organisational Change, Coaching and Personal Development and Education and Public Policy because it helps us meet people where they are, not where we assume they should be.

Obviously someone who is at the first stage, “Pre-Contemplation” is not going to rush to buy your service, so they need education and awareness.

Someone who is contemplating change needs to be informed. You could share stories or data or case studies.

When someone is getting ready, they want you to be available, responsive and solution-oriented.

If they’re ready to buy, it’s time to ask for their commitment.

Next maintain the change through an ongoing relationship – follow up, upsell and support their success.

And if they happen to relapse, they may be experiencing doubt, so reconnect and re-engage to rebuild trust.

You can think of your marketing as meeting prospects where they are, not where you want them to be. A pushy sales pitch in the Pre-Contemplation stage won’t work, whereas a warm, helpful message in Contemplation can help move them forward.

Marketing Mentor, Cham Tang, says, “Marketing is developing relationships with people until they are ready to buy”.

Even if you’re not in sales, think about yourself and your team. In relation to change of any kind, where are you at? Reply and let me know.

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Go to https://shirleydalton.com/Weekly-Thoughts.

Into The Label Maker We Go (WT777)

Into The Label Maker We Go (WT777)

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by Shirley Dalton | 16 May, 2025 | Blog, Leadership, Mindset

WT 777 Into the label maker we go

This week I’m sharing a conversation I had with a good friend and colleague.

We’ll call him Andrew.

Andrew was telling me about one of his team members.

The team member was bemoaning his clients.

“Rather than being grateful for the work or understanding of the needs of his clients”, Andrew said, “Into The Label Maker We Go”.

He went on to explain.

The team member would mention the client’s name, throw them in the label maker and then spit out any number of disparaging judgements and labels to describe his clients.

Now, this shouldn’t be funny and yet I found myself laughing heartily at the metaphor.

I imagined the team member’s head shaped like a label maker, similar to the old fashioned “Dyno” label makers, which we would use to make sticky labels of our names etc. for school books, cases and the like.

Sadly, I think, to some extent, we are all label makers.

Recall one of your own recent conversations and notice if you threw people into your label maker, and spat out judgements and criticisms.

When we label and judge others:

  1. We ignore the fact that we don’t know all the facts. We don’t know what’s going on for the other to cause them to behave the way they do.
  2. We often project onto others, unresolved issues of our own. “She’s ignorant. She doesn’t listen. She interrupts”, complains your friend who does all of that and more.
  3. It limits their growth and yours. Labels can box people in. If they accept the label, they can become the label and therefore not grow and develop.
  4. If we normalse this behaviour, we create environments where negativity, comparison, and gossip thrive—rather than support, acceptance, and mutual respect.
  5. We let ourselves off the hook for having the conversation and giving the feedback about the behaviour we’d like to see changed.

So, as funny as the metaphor is, on a serious note, I encourage you to expel your label maker.

This doesn’t mean people won’t do things that upset you. Rather it encourages you to find out what’s going on, to have a look at yourself, to be open to growth and development and to create a culture of acceptance and mutual respect and hold yourself accountable for having the conversation in a positive and assertive way.

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The Law of Commitment (WT776)

The Law of Commitment (WT776)

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by Shirley Dalton | 9 May, 2025 | Blog, Mindset

WT 776 Commitment

When you say you’re committed to (fill in the blank), have you ever wondered how your body knows you are committed?

This week I’ve been studying with Benjamin J. Harvey and he gave a mind-blowing explanation of the Law of Commitment.

In fact, we are biologically designed to succeed if we follow the Law of Commitment.

In your body, you have cells called Astrocytes.

Astrocytes respond to two things. They respond to what’s called increased impulse traffic where the impulses are travelling down the same neural networks over and over again as well as taking urgent action.

With a couple of coaching processes we can trick the astrocytes by combining increased traffic with urgent action.

Say you have a habit that you want to accelerate. If you did the same thing every day, once a day for a year, you would have “zapped” your neurons (electrical chemical impulse travelling down the axons) just 365 times. But if you sit down and do 1000 zaps in a sitting, this is the equivalent of taking 3 years to form the habit. So you are accelerating the number of times the neural network fires, causing the astrocytes to wake up and ask, “What’s going on?”

The astrocytes then wake up your glial cells called Oligodendrocytes which wrap your axons with myelin.  It’s the myelin that is responsible for your ability to learn and retain the habit. The myelin insulates your neurons so the impulses can travel faster, in fact, up to 100x faster through a neuron that’s wrapped with myelin compared to one that isn’t.

With a little bit of habit hacking, you can actually achieve your results 5x faster.

Think about it this way. The only way to know that you’re committed is by your speed of response.

If you have kids you’ll see this by how quickly they put on their shoes to go to a friend’s party compared to how long it takes to put on school shoes. They’re committed to going to the party.

For yourself, notice how quickly you get into action to respond to an SMS to a person you’re committed to vs someone you’re not committed to. The same goes for your work. You speed up your response to the tasks you’re committed to vs those that you aren’t.

This is absolutely fascinating.

We can say we are committed, however now we know how to tell if we’re really committed and we also know how we can hack the system to accelerate our results.

Let me know what you’re committed to and how quickly you’re getting your results. Reach out if you’d like to accelerate your results.

 

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There’s A Better Way To Say It (WT775)

There’s A Better Way To Say It (WT775)

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by Shirley Dalton | 2 May, 2025 | Blog, Communication Skills

WT 775 There is a better way to say it

You know that one of my passions is communication.

I’ve spent decades studying communication and am an accredited instructor for Thomas Gordon’s Leader Effectiveness Training and overall Effectiveness Training, both of which place a heavy emphasis on developing communication skills.

So this week I cringed when a colleague shared with me, her dismay at receiving some feedback.

These days I’m also cautious about using the word “feedback” because for most of us, it means something negative is coming or a criticism of some sort.

Anyhoo, we’ll call her Jasmine.

In a public forum, one of Jasmine’s colleagues pointed out that a diagram Jasmine had created was not perfectly symmetrical.

“The diagram doesn’t line up”, said the colleague.

“Ouch”, felt Jasmine.

“Even if it was slightly off, couldn’t she have said it in a more tactful or polite way, especially in front of others?” asked Jasmine.

“Yes, I believe she could”, I replied.

“How would you have given the feedback?” she asked.

I would have come from offering a point for improvement rather than blatantly saying it was wrong.

For example, something like, “I’m wondering if the lines could be moved a little closer together so they are all the same distance from each other?”

The second version comes from an attitude of curiosity and desire to help improve.

The first version lands as being direct, harsh and superior.

When you’re providing feedback to your work colleagues or even at home with your family, please consider how your comments will land with the other.

Your intention might be to help improve, however your words may have the exact opposite effect.

Your colleagues may feel embarrassed and hurt and could feel like you are pointing out their errors on purpose, which will do little for your relationship.

Now I know there are some of you “Driver” type personalities who are direct and don’t like using “fluffy” words, however, before you leap to debate the issue, ask yourself this question, “Do I care about the relationship?”  If the answer is “Yes”, (for whatever reason), then please, use your skills.

Take the time to find a better way to say it.

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Just Jump In (WT774)

Just Jump In (WT774)

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by Shirley Dalton | 25 Apr, 2025 | Blog, Mindset

WT 774 Just jump in

You know animals can teach us a lot about life.

It was Good Friday and Ross and I were relaxing in the loungeroom when we noticed three kookaburras sitting on the railing on the front verandah.

They weren’t there long before they were joined by magpies, a currawong and a butcher bird.

Now, ordinarily Ross and I would not feed birds because we recalled a sign in a Queensland national park when we were travelling that said, “A fed bird is a dead bird”.

So generally, we won’t feed birds.

For some reason, on this day, Ross had some left over meat and so he threw it on the verandah.

The kookaburras jumped in, grabbed what they could, flew off and proceeded to shake their beaks to kill their prize.

The butcher bird also took flight, grabbed a piece and flew off.

Not so the magpies and currawong.

They hesitated.

They were on high alert.

They kept looking this way and that.

To Ross and I there was clearly no danger.

They could have quickly swooped down, grabbed their share and flown off.

Still they waited.

Still they hesitated, until finally one of the magpies made a daring dash.

With prize in mouth, the magpie took off.

I didn’t see it again until a week later when I heard a commotion outside.

As I looked out the window, the magpie was scolding its young and pushing it away as it ran across the yard with its stash from a few days before.

The magpie then hid its stash under the bushes on the other side of the yard.

So what are they teaching us?

Apart from “Don’t feed the birds”, they are teaching us not to wait, rather to just jump in.

If fear is holding you back, you are likely to miss out.

If there is something you want, I encourage you to just jump in and go for it.

The sooner you do, the sooner you’ll get your prize.

In fact, I have a poster in my room that was a gift from a podcast guest, that says, “Everything you want is on the other side of fear”.

Just jump in.

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Go to https://shirleydalton.com/Weekly-Thoughts.

P.P.S.  If you are feeling fearful and you would like to release that fear, we have a transformational tool that can help. Contact us if you’d like to know more.

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