Psychology of Change Part 1

PART 1: THE FIVE STAGES OF CHANGE WITH LICENSED PSYCHOLOGIST, YAO OLIVARES, M.S.,LMHC AND NATIONALLY ACCREDITED HEALTH COACH, MICHAEL COLEMAN, CHC, CPT, CES

^{Yao: Hello, hello. Ready to start when you are.}

^{Michael: Well, Yao, I really appreciate this opportunity to talk to you. I know we've talked before, but this way we can really share with other people a bunch of your research and your background and my research and my background. So, I think this will be great!}

^{Now, we’ve talked about how people need to go through stages of change. So, I would like to address that today.}

^{So, I really wasn't that interested so much in peak performance. However what I did think was really interesting were some of the concepts from basic psychology, like intrinsic motivation. I think that these connect with the stages of change.} 

^{I'm going to first just read something I prepared very quickly…}

^{All psychological drivers can ultimately be broken down into one of two categories: extrinsic and intrinsic.}

^{Extrinsic Drivers}

^{Extrinsic drivers include things like money, status, exotic food, and sensuality, otherwise known as sex.}

^{Many people chase these seeking to win some sort of evolutionary survival game is what I call it.}

^{And these intrinsic drivers, on the other hand, I think are things that live deep within us. They connect to psychological and emotional concepts such as curiosity, passion, significance, and purpose.} 

^{And the psychological research that I've seen, and I'm sure what you've done is back this up too, it says that the extrinsic drivers only motivate us for so long. It gets to a point where they're not as important as it used to be, especially when people have enough food, shelter, and clothing.}

^{Intrinsic Motivators}

^{So, after we've met our basic needs, the intrinsic motivators, take over. And these drivers would be the five most powerful ones that I believe have been researched. And again, correct me if your research is different. They are curiosity, passion, purpose, autonomy, and then mastery.} 

^{Now, something I've never done before was to actually take those intrinsic drivers and connect them to the five stages of behavioral change that you and I both have talked about many times.}

^{Five Stages of Behavioral Change}

^{So, pre-contemplation, which is the first stage, would, in my mind, connect to curiosity, especially getting curiosity so that people can even focus on it.} 

^{Contemplation would connect to passion. So, they start to develop a passion and they're contemplating actually exploring more.} 

^{Preparation, that word then would connect with purpose.} 

^{Action would connect to autonomy once they're actually feeling that they have the self-efficacy to actually take action and to establish this new behavior.}

^{And then finally, maintenance, which I would connect with mastery because maintenance is something that you need to continue doing for a longer period of time. I've never seen those things put together.} 

^{So, what do you think about this idea of intrinsic motivation and connecting it to the stages of change?}

^{Yao: That's a great way to start. So, we have a lot of different drivers. A lot of times in my career, I have people who are seeking change.}

^{And as they continuously develop, they continuously grow, they continuously learn new things, one of the biggest things and the questions that comes up is like,}

^{“Listen, I'm seeing the change within myself, but I really would like to see that same change in others.”}

^{Michael: Interesting.}

^{Yao: “How can I get to a place where I am able to now change others?”}

^{And this is where I provide the stages of change.}

^{Michael: I'm interested to hear how you navigate that.}

^{Yao: Yes. And the idea is…So I'm going to go towards a specific case where they're actually wanting other people to go to therapy too. In this case, it was this person's spouse.}

^{“And how do I get them to want therapy and have this experience?”}

^{And it's really difficult because look at the pre-contemplation stage, which is the first stage of change.}

^{You realize that it's very challenging to have people do something when they don't really find either a problem, they don't see the cost of the problem behavior.}

^{Michael: Well, “You don't know what you don't know.”}

^{Yao: Yes, “You don't know what you don't know!”}

^{And they have not even considered changing their behavior. And now here you are coming into this space saying like, “Well, there are some things that I see about you that maybe you could improve.”}

^{And it's like, well, that could be a point of influence and impact. And that is where also maybe to some degree, forms of extrinsic motivation will come in.}

^{And this one is like extrinsic motivation based on maybe like, “Hey, what's in it for me?”}

^{Michael: No, I get it. I am someone who was, I was married for many years, and I'm also just about to get married again.}

^{And coming from the background of actually being married and understanding that I don't think you can control someone.}

^{I believe that you can only clean your own house.} 

^{You've heard of Marie Kondo, right?}

^{Marie Kondo, she's Japanese and she has a bunch of books out. She's actually has a Netflix series about how she magically organizes houses.}

^{Anyway, people talk about this to her all the time. They're in a house and they're trying to use her method to clean it efficiently. But then they have all these other people who are constantly messing the house up again…}

^{What she basically says to them is you have to find a corner or a space that you can control…your room or your part of the kitchen or whatever it happens to be. Even if it's in a one-bedroom apartment, you must find and start with a place that is yours.} 

^{Ultimately, when you clean your own house first..,because if you are the role model, that means that you have to be a model.} 

^{Personally, I don't really believe that someone else can love you more than you can love yourself.}

^{So, if you start with yourself and you're like, “I need therapy & I need to get better.” Then the more people can talk about how much better they're doing.}

^{For example, with you or with me or any other kind of therapy, of course there's physical therapy as well as psychological therapy.}

^Curiosity

^{But then other people, I think, will become curious. And that's the first thing is curiosity.} 

^{But what makes people curious? What makes people interested in something? When they see results.} 

^{If you're eating well and you start getting in better shape and the other person sitting next to you is like, “Hey, what are you doing to get in better shape?”} 

^{If someone's arguing and it used to be that when they yelled at you, you yelled back. But now when they yell at you…you instead go}

^{“Yeah, I can consider that. Yeah, there are some things that I need to do better.”}

^{Then the other person would be like, “How is it that you're changing in such a positive way?” And they might be interested at that point.}

^{So, to me, even within arguments, because like I said, I have been married, which means there have been arguments. I'm sorry, I don't care who you are. There have been arguments.} 

^{And I think about how when people have contempt for each other, contempt means that they truly aren't listening to the other person. And the thing is that we can't force people to be in a relationship, but I can work on myself and love myself and care about myself.} 

^{So that person has the ability to then come into my light and my realm and say, “Hey, I really like how I feel.” And I think that because we can't know each other exactly, all we can do is know how we are with that other person.} 

^{So, when I'm talking to you, Yao, I feel good. I feel like I'm with you. I feel like I'm my best self. I feel like I can say whatever I want to say. But there are other people that I talk to who I feel a little bit more guarded with. I might not be able to say 100% of what I really feel.}

^{Yao: Absolutely. So, I definitely want to add more to it because...}

^{Michael: Yeah, I'm listening.}

^{Yao: You went ahead and you touched upon a great point of when we actually do change ourselves, this is what can create the influence and impact in other people's lives.}

^{Michael: I agree 100%.}

^{Yao: Even in relationships, I know you mentioned a little bit about contempt. So, contempt is the showing of anger, hostility towards your partner.} 

^Contempt

^{Now, this contempt is actually one of the four horsemen in Gottman's theory.} 

^{And Gottman's theory states that there are four types of behaviors that escalate conflict and damage relationships. Contempt is one of them. Criticism is another. The last two are defensiveness and  stonewalling.} 

^{And the approach, let's say, if you are dealing with someone who is in contempt, is the show of fondness and admiration. Fostering a healthy relationship by regularly showing each other the respect that each other deserves.} 

^{Just something like that could be an influence to create that awareness that can maybe go from pre-contemplation stage to maybe contemplation stage…}

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