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Changing for Good
Three psychologists' book on the stages people move through when they change, and what helps at each
Why it’s worth your time
In Changing for Good, three psychologists, James Prochaska, John Norcross and Carlo DiClemente, describe change as a series of stages and argue that the help you need depends on which one you're in. If you've been meaning to make a change for months and feel bad about not doing it, the book gives you words for where you are.
The stages of change, applied to your own goals
The book · About 6 hours of reading · Buy or borrow
How to get it
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- Read the stages first.
The book's core is its six stages of change and what helps at each one. Its examples draw on smoking, drinking and eating, so read for the stages and translate the examples to your own change.
- Name your stage for one change at work.
Pick one change you've been circling, such as a career move or a conversation you keep postponing. Write the stage you think you're in, from not yet considering it to keeping it up, and one step that fits: learning more, making a plan, telling someone, or protecting a change you've already made.
Good moments for this: when you've been meaning to change for monthsafter a slip back into an old habitbefore a career move you keep postponing
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Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
Prochaska and his co-authors built them for habits, not for choices about work. A job change also depends on things outside you, such as openings, money and timing, so feeling ready is often only part of the picture. For a career move, Herminia Ibarra's Working Identity, which argues for testing a new direction through small experiments, may be the better next read.
What might make this harder
Prochaska and his co-authors treat cycling back through the stages as normal; their research describes people going round several times before a change holds. Write down what set off the slip, and restart from planning instead of from scratch.
Questions people ask
What is Changing for Good about?
Written in 1994 by Prochaska, Norcross and DiClemente, three psychologists who studied change, it sets out their model of how people change: six stages, from not yet intending to change through contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance to termination, with strategies suited to each. Its examples center on habits such as smoking, drinking and overeating.
What is the termination stage?
The last of the six, when the old behavior no longer tempts you and keeping the change takes no effort. Not every account includes it. The University of Minnesota's guide to the model notes that some problems may only ever be kept at bay, and the authors' own 1992 summary of their research describes five stages.
Can you stay in the contemplation stage for a long time?
Yes. Contemplation is knowing there's a problem and thinking seriously about it without being ready to act, and the University of Minnesota's guide to the model notes that people can stay there for years.
What it says, and how it holds up
Prochaska, Norcross and DiClemente, psychologists who studied how people change addictive habits both on their own and in therapy, see change as a sequence of stages, with the right help depending on which stage you're in. In their account, setting goals you aren't ready for sets you up to fail. The book's job is to help you tell which stage you're in and what fits it.
Their six stages run from precontemplation, where you don't yet see a problem that others can, through contemplation, preparation and action, to maintenance and finally termination, when the old behavior no longer pulls at you. What helps changes as you go: learning more while you're unsure, a detailed plan and a public commitment as you prepare, and steady watchfulness after you've changed, since action is only the most visible part. The model behind it also pairs the stages with processes of change, such as consciousness raising, that suit different points along the way.
More than thirty years on, the stages are still widely used in health and coaching, and still argued over. A guide on The Behavioral Scientist, reviewed by Jason Hreha, who led behavioral science at Walmart, calls the model a useful description but not a proven prescription: people clearly differ in readiness, it says, yet in the 2010 Cochrane review of smoking-cessation trials it cites, the few trials that compared like with like found no clear advantage in matching help to someone's stage. The psychologist Robert West went further in the journal Addiction in 2005, arguing that the model should be retired. As that guide suggests, the stages are probably best used as a vocabulary for readiness, not a rulebook.
Some decisions run on someone else's clock. If your company needs an answer this month on a move to another office, say, readiness isn't yours to set, and waiting to work through the stages probably won't help. Writing down the two or three things that matter most to you and checking the choice against them tends to help more, along with an honest conversation about the timing.
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Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.