On today's program we continue our discussion on improving our lifestyle health behaviors with professional counselors Michael Moore and Stephen Givens. Michael Moore has served as a minister in the Church of Christ for the past 25 years. He has been a Licensed Professional Counselor for the past 14 years and is a Behavior Specialist for for the local school districts. Stephen Givens is a Nationally Certified Addictions Counselor and has a passion for christian counseling. He is a co-owner of Counseling and Wellness Center Ohio.
On our last program, the question was asked why do so many New Year's resolutions fail before Valentine's Day? According to Drs. Prochaska and DiClemente, it's because we are going about things in the wrong way; fewer than 20 percent of us are really prepared to take action. They concluded after considerable research that behavior changes usually do not succeed if they start with the change itself. Instead, we must go through a series of stages to prepare ourselves for that eventual change. According to Prochaska and DiClemente's transtheoretical model of behavior change (also called the stages of change model), our chances of keeping those New Year's resolutions will be greatly enhanced if we have proper reinforcement and help during each of the stages.
Michael and Stephen discuss the first stage in this process and that is the "percontemplation" stage. In this stage, people have no current intention of changing. They may have tried to change a behavior before and failed at doing so, or they may be in denial and unaware of any problem. Stephen gives a great point of individuals in our lives, such as friends and family that enable us to continue down this path of unhealthy behavior patterns. He explains that while attending a conference on addiction he listened to an motivational speaker mentioned six important words and that is, "You Can Love Somebody To Death."