Martha Beck recounts an interesting story about her daughter choosing a college*. When they first spoke about the matter the daughter dismissed the discussion saying the only thing she wanted from a college was a location without bugs.

Martha recognized that her daughter was still in precontemplation on the subject. Precontemplation is the first stage of change when we are asking ourselves if the change is even possible.

In fact we may have even given up on achieving a certain goal because of the risk of failure. When people have abandoned hope they they say things like, “I’ve tried everything, and nothing works.”

A few months later when Martha breached the subject of college again, her daughter had still not given it any thought. Rather then pushing her daughter on the issue, she said “well, you don’t have to make any decisions today.” To which her daughter said “she would think about thinking about it.”

And this was key, because now the daughter is at least considering the change.

During precontemplation we are guarded. Had Martha strong-armed her daughter that day, the pressure would have pushed her daughter away from even considering change.

The increase in stress would have caused her to go into fight or flight, and the emotional portion of the brain would have taken charge to defend her from the stress.

When we are stuck in pre-contemplation we become defensive about the problem. We are not willing to discuss the problem. Instead of seeing the actions of others as concern or caring, we see it as them trying to control us.

When we are stuck in precontemplation we avoid learning about our problems. We may change the channel on TV, or change the subject in conversation. We are unwilling to […]