You’ve heard it all before. “No pain no gain.” You’ve tried going to the gym countless times. Maybe you’ve even tried personal training. Yet no matter how many times you’ve tried, you just can’t seem to commit to a fitness regimen or reach your fitness goals. What’s the secret to success here?
The answer lies in the science of behavior change. Personal trainers know that successful training programs require time, progression, and personalization. Yet there are still many clients who fail to reach their goals or give up before they can. It’s not enough for someone to decide they want to lose 25 pounds or even workout three times a week. Significant research shows that behavior change strategies are the key to helping people adopt the habits needed to successfully reach health and fitness goals.
The behavior change process can be challenging even to the most highly motivated people. Behavior change is a complex journey that requires trainers to take a personalized approach while working with each client.
What Exactly is Behavior Change?
Behavior change is the process of stopping habits that are not serving you and changing or replacing them with new desirable behaviors. When it comes to health and fitness, creating lasting, sustainable behaviors is crucial for maintaining a healthy lifestyle and reaching your goals.
But creating goals can quickly become overwhelming, especially if you’re new or unsure where to start. Some people tend to jump in headfirst but take on too much change at once, leaving them feeling stressed and causing them to give up altogether.
Stages of Behavior Change
Making a lasting change in one’s behavior is not a quick or easy process. If you want to make changes that last, you must recognize that it will require time, effort, emotion, and commitment to your goals.
The key to behavior change in fitness is to use tried and true methods based on psychology to slowly and incrementally build up for less stressful or overwhelming transitions in your habits.
While there various theories of behavior change out there, the main theory is the Transtheoretical model (TTM) developed by James Prochaska. According to this model, behavior change occurs in dynamic cyclical stages (pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance). These stages are not linear like a staircase, and people can move dynamically from stage to stage at any time.
Pre-Contemplation
The pre-contemplation stage takes place at least 6 months before you are ready to make any changes. In this stage, you may be unaware of any problem behavior and do not feel like making changes is necessary. People in this stage are likely not signing up for any fitness or personal training sessions.
Contemplation
During contemplation is where people start to consider changing their behavior. They begin weighing the pros and cons of making changes or staying the same. However, even at this stage, one may still feel ambivalent, hesitant, or not ready to change. But it is important to understand the benefits of behavior change. A personal trainer can share information to bring awareness about any problem behavior and the benefits that may come with this change. They can help you consider the best path to take for your fitness journey.
Preparation
In the preparation state, you have decided you want to make changes to your lifestyle and work toward healthier choices. You believe that change is necessary and are making a plan to do so in the next thirty days. This could mean that you’ve signed up for personal training or are looking into fitness classes. The preparation stage is important as it sets one up for a successful action stage. A personal trainer can help you set SMART goals and develop a personalized program to take small steps toward reaching your fitness goals.
Action
At this point, you have been making changes in this stage for about 6 months. In this action stage, you are actively working to complete the tasks in their plan and visibly change their behavior. This stage is still early in the process and the learned habits are still new, so you must be vigilant and purposeful to continue your actions. Having the support and accountability of someone like a personal trainer is essential here. They can identify appropriate rewards, replace unhealthy behaviors with healthier ones, and reduce temptation in your environment through stimulus control.
Maintenance
This is the phase where you have been successfully acting on your new behaviors and have made lasting changes for over 6 months now. In this stage, you must work to maintain the efforts you have achieved in the action stage of the change process. This stage is often mistakenly viewed as the completion of the behavior change process, but that is not the case. It is important to avoid relapse and make sure that the changes you have made will stick. Maintenance is an active and important stage where you work to sustain the momentum you have built so far in order to stay motivated with your goals. Relapsing to your old behaviors most commonly happens in this stage, so it is imperative to work hard and stay consistent. Having a dedicated trainer can help you stay focused and committed to maintaining your goals.
Why Is Behavior Change So Hard?
Even when people say they want to make change and be healthier, they need to understand how their counterproductive habits and attitudes developed in the first place, and require specific reinforcement to overcome those old patterns.
There are various reasons that people have difficulty cultivating or maintaining lasting change in their lives. It can be easy to relapse into old habits that are counterintuitive to your goals, whether due to sedentary lifestyle, poor eating habits, or lack of sleep.
In addition, a lack of a strong support system can interfere with one’s progress. Ineffective goal-setting techniques can also hinder behavior change efforts. This is why having a professional, like a certified personal trainer on your side can improve your chances of not only making the necessary behavior changes, but also maintaining them long term.
Maintaining your motivation and new behaviors is vital for lasting change. Having a workout buddy or personal trainer to be your accountability partner will help you stay on track. Check in with your partner or trainer and be open about your struggles. Look to them to give you encouragement as well, to motivate you to stick to your workout commitments.
