Where Are You Right Now? The Stages of Change

By Amanda Scott-Telford · IPHM Certified Trauma-Informed, Mental Wellness and Recovery Coach

Some people think change works like a light switch. One day you decide, you flip it, and you're a new person — and if you slip back, it means the switch was never really on. That model sets almost everyone up to feel like a failure, because that is not how change actually happens.

Real change moves through stages. Decades ago, two researchers named Prochaska and DiClemente studied how people actually change hard behaviors — and found that we all move through a recognizable series of steps, usually more than once, before it sticks. Knowing which step you're standing on changes everything. It tells you that you're not behind, not broken, not doing it wrong. You're somewhere specific on a path other people have walked — and there's a next step from exactly where you are.

Let's walk the stages together. As you read, notice which one feels like home right now. There's no wrong answer, and there's no prize for pretending you're further along than you are.

Stage 1: Precontemplation — “I don't have a problem.”

This is the stage before change is even on the radar. From the inside, it doesn't feel like denial — it feels like everyone else is overreacting. If there's a problem, it's the stress, the job, the people, the genes. Most people don't arrive here on their own; they get here because someone else is worried.

If that's you, you probably aren't reading this. But if you love someone who's here, this is the most important thing to understand: you can't argue someone out of precontemplation. Pressure tends to make people defend the very thing you want them to question. What plants a seed instead is honesty without a lecture, and staying in the relationship long enough for their own doubt to surface.

Stage 2: Contemplation — “Maybe... but I'm not sure.”

This is where a quiet doubt cracks the door open. You start to wonder if the thing is costing you more than it gives. You can see the problem now — but you can also see everything you'd lose by changing, and you are not at all sure it's worth it.

Here's what I most want you to know about this stage: the ambivalence is not a sign you're failing. It's the defining feature. Researchers actually call this “peak ambivalence” — the place where I want to and I don't want to are both fully true at the same time. If you feel torn in half, you're not weak or indecisive. You're exactly where this stage lives. Most people spend far longer here than anywhere else, circling the same question. That's normal. The work of this stage isn't to force a decision — it's to let yourself look honestly at both sides.

Stage 3: Preparation — “I'm going to do this.”

Something tips. The scale finally leans toward change, and you start getting ready. This is the stage of small logistics and quiet resolve: picking a date, telling one safe person, looking up a meeting, booking the call, clearing the house. You haven't fully changed yet, and the old ambivalence still whispers — but you've decided which way you're facing.

This stage is short, and it matters more than it looks. People who take a little time to prepare — to make a real plan instead of just white-knuckling a sudden decision — tend to do better than people who leap without a net. Preparation isn't procrastination. It's building the runway.

Stage 4: Action — “I'm doing it.”

This is the stage everyone pictures when they think of change: visibly stopping, visibly building new routines, doing the daily hard work. It's also the stage that asks the most of you — the most energy, the most attention, the most support. Everything is effortful because nothing is automatic yet.

Two gentle truths for the action stage. First: because this is the visible part, people around you will start treating it as the whole story — as if once you've “done it,” you're finished. You're not, and that's not a failure of yours. Second: this is the stage most likely to burn you out if you try to do it on willpower alone. Action is where a plan, a “why,” and a person in your corner earn their keep.

Stage 5: Maintenance — “I'm keeping it.”

Maintenance is the long, quiet, underrated stage where the new life becomes the actual life. The dramatic part is over; now it's about protecting what you've built on ordinary days, when no one's watching and the old pull gets subtle. It takes real commitment — not the white-knuckle kind, but the kind that comes from having built a life you don't need to escape from.

Maintenance isn't “cured,” and it isn't coasting. It's tending. And the better you've built the life underneath — the relationships, the meaning, the ways of settling your own nervous system — the less maintenance feels like holding your breath and the more it feels like simply living.

The non-linear journey

Here's the piece that changes how the whole model feels. These stages are not a straight line, and they're not a ladder you climb once. They're a cycle. Most people who successfully change a hard behavior go around the loop three or four times before it lasts.

Which means a slip is not falling off the ladder. And here's something worth saying plainly: a recurrence can happen at any stage — not just at the very end. You can slip while you're preparing, deep in the action stage, or years into maintenance. It doesn't mean you were secretly back at square one the whole time. It usually just moves you back a stage or two — often to contemplation, where you get to look honestly at what happened and go around again, wiser. The people who make it aren't the ones who never cycle back. They're the ones who treat each trip around the loop as information instead of proof they've failed. (There's a whole post on this — You Relapsed. That's Not the End of the Story. — if that's where you are right now.)

Why knowing your stage matters

When you know which stage you're in, you stop using the wrong tool for the job. If you're in contemplation, you don't need a relapse-prevention plan yet — you need space to sit with your ambivalence honestly. If you're in action, you don't need more convincing — you need support and structure. So much of the frustration people feel in recovery comes from being handed action-stage advice while they're still standing in contemplation, and then concluding something is wrong with me. Nothing is wrong with you. You were just being met at the wrong stage.

Wherever you are on this loop — even precontemplation, even peak ambivalence, even trip number four around the circle — you are somewhere real, and there is a next step from here. You don't have to jump to the end. You just have to take the one step that belongs to the stage you're actually in.

You're not broken. You're becoming whole.

Not sure where you are — or what your next step is? That's exactly the kind of thing coaching is for. I offer secular, trauma-informed recovery coaching and a free 15-minute intro call — no labels, no pressure, no assuming you're further along (or further behind) than you are. Book a free call whenever you're ready, or see how coaching works first. If you're ready to picture what you're building, my free My Recovery Vision worksheet is a gentle place to start.

Understand the why. Heal the wound. Emerge whole.

You're not broken. You're becoming whole.

Sources

•     The five stages of change, and the finding that change is cyclical (most people cycle through three or four times before it lasts): The Stages of Change (SMART Recovery).

•     Readiness to change, motivation, and “peak ambivalence” in the contemplation stage — plus meeting people at the stage they're actually in: Motivation and Change (CAMH, Fundamentals of Addiction).

•     The Stages of Change model originates in the Transtheoretical Model developed by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente.