1. Bre Kirpes
4/1/15
Dimensions of Well-being
Changing Behavior
In this paper I will go through and explain how I will change one of my behaviors as well
as changing one of my sisters’ behaviors. Though we both have several flaws it is important to
only change one behavior at a time for the transtheoretical model to efficiently work. I need to
enhance my spiritual wellness and she needs to learn not to procrastinate for her to have a more
balanced life. The model consists of five steps to take to achieve the desired behavior change.
They are precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance. I will take you
through each step and describe the plan of action for each, for my behavior change and my
sisters.
Let’s briefly look at the key areas of each of the five steps. One of the main ideas of step
one, precontemplation, is the person has no desire to change. This could be because of lack of
motivation. They may not even realize the problem exist. This is common in people with bad
driving habits. Though their driving may be reckless because they have not gotten into an actual
accident they do recognize a problem. The next step is contemplation. This is where a person
does see a problem and plans to make a change. A key thing to understand here is that it is easy
to get stuck in this stage. In order to move out of here the person needs confidence and
motivation.
The next stage is preparation. In this stage the key difference is that person is ready to
change not just thinking about it. They are taking steps to seek information and are committed to

2. that action in 30 days. The action stage is closely tied to this. You go from the small steps to
actually being completely involved in said behavior change. This can be tricky though.
Maintenance the last stage is critical to keeping up the desired behavior change. It is important to
know your weaknesses and what may prevent you from continuing. All of these five stages are
all tied together by motivation and confidence. If you don’t have these it will make completing
the task a lot harder and moving forward seem impossible. To maintain these qualities you
should use self-reward/ positive reinforcement.
Before this paper I had no intention of changing my behavior of not being spiritually
involved. I hadn’t even though about it as a problem. I was in the precontemplation stage. But
this paper was a positive reinforcement, making me look at my life and having me choose an
area to work on. It makes it in a way seem like it’s my idea.
This paper has pushed me into making a plan to change. According to the theory would
plan on doing this in the next six months. I defiantly don’t plan on doing it tomorrow. All I
know is that I don’t feel involved in anything greater than myself. I do not really feel like I am
apart of anything and some days that can be really depressing. So I know I want to change and
am making a plan to do so and that puts me in the contemplation stage.
In order to move out of that stage and proceed into the preparation stage I need to find
ways to increase my confidence. Which is hard to do because part of the reason I want to do this
is to increase self-esteem. But I think that talking to others on their experience in different
programs or clubs, even here on campus, would raise that confidence. I would need to be on the
lookout for things that would spike my interest. I could take time to read the posters people put
up in the buildings and outside on the campus walk ways. After I find something that I think

3. would be a good fit I would need to take action and join in 30 days. If I don’t it would be likely
that I would have a possible lapse and be set back to previous steps.
From here I would move into action because I would start attending the club of my
choice. Now that I have actually changed my behavior it is important to maintain that behavior.
It is very common to relapse here for the simple fact that old habits die hard. For example I know
that if I go back to my dorm and watch Netflix I would probably skip out on the meeting. To
make sure I continue with the desired behavior I would need to provide maintenance. This would
look like me going back to my dorm and doing homework instead of watching Netflix and then
allowing myself to watch it later after the meeting. Or not going back to my dorm at all and
hanging out with friends instead. They could even be friends I’ve made in the club. If I hung out
with them before the scheduled meeting time there would be no way I would skip out. Also just
having friends there would be motivation to go. The deeper I get involved in the club and the
more connections I make the harder it would be to get out or even want to.
As for my sister she is in the contemplation stage. She was in the precontemplation stage
for a long time but with a lot of motivation from our parents and me she has taken a step in the
right direction. She has tried to not procrastinate in the past but has always relapsed. So it has
been really hard of her to take that next step of even just considering to try again. For a long time
my parents would just rag on her about not doing her stuff and would take away her computer as
punishment. She watches a lot of Anime on her computer instead of doing her homework. But
after learning through this course that that is not an effective way to go about it, they stopped.
They now give positive reinforcement. Even though she is still procrastinating they give positive
verbal queues when she gets stuff in on time.

4. Through this she has moved in to contemplation stage. I know this because I recently
talked to her about it and she told me she wanted to change. I tried the strategy we learned in
class about talking about how you made a change and how it helped you so it seems like it is
their idea. The minute you try to force anything on her she shuts down. It seemed to have
worked. I also think another thing I could do is show her all the positives of her keeping her
grade up. She’s had a 3.8 average her whole high school career. But since it is slipping she may
not even get the rewards of all the previously hard worked years. Though instead of focusing on
the negative things like what she would be missing out on I could say things like these are the
things you would gain, this is the money you would be saving.
To get her to the preperation stage I could suggest that we do homework together. If she
accepts then she would be ready to move on to the next stage because she would be committing
to an action. To get her out of the preparation stage I could set up times that we could do
homework together and actively seek to do them with her. This would also benefit her by
motivation her to do the things required of her. I know that when I work on homework with
others it seems like less of a chore. Setting up specific times to do things also helps with
eliminating procreation. If you don’t set up a time it is easy to say you’ll do it later. In order to
skip out on it she would have to make an excuse to me and not just herself which is also harder.
If this does not work because I would only be able to make it back on weekend due to of the two
hour drive then she could plan dates to do homework with her friends on the week days. Or plan
on getting in to a study group at school. I believe these are all reasonable goals. She wouldn’t
need to do all of them or even do homework every day, for her that would be unreasonable. This
would be and affective strategy. But taking a small step in one of those directions is the right

5. course of action. For the specific strategy we would make an action plan for two weeks and then
gradually extend it and modify it for her schedule.
Once she was fully committed to meeting this and actively doing it she would to be in the
action staged. As stated earlier this is the trickiest part. Maintaining this is hard. In order to this
she would need additional outside support. It is said that doing the same thing can lead to
problems. I feel for her though it would be beneficial to keep the same schedule. She’s really into
routines. She is not good with things she doesn’t expect. So in order to maintain this I think we
would need to keep the routine. But make sure it doesn’t get boring we could incorporate other
things into it. For example we could watch TV at the same time.
Through these five steps it seem anything is possible. I can become more spiritually
involved and she can learn not to procrastinate. All these things have one thing in common in
order for them to work, confidence that you can do it. Keep yourself motivated and all will be
well.