Assalamualaikum wrt wbt..

Stages of Change, it might sound really familiar to some especially medical students because you might happen to learn it in the Behavioral Science class or tutorial. But bear with me for a while. We may practically use it in medical career but it is also very useful as a tool of self improvement and da’wah.

There are 5 stages of change:

Precontemplation : This is the stage at which there is no intention to change behaviour in the foreseeable future. Many individuals in this stage are unaware or underaware of their problems.

Contemplation : This is the stage in which people are aware that a problem exists and are seriously thinking about overcoming it but have not yet made a commitment to take action

Preparation : This is a stage that combines intention and behavioural criteria. Individuals in this stage are intending to take action in the next month and have unsucessfully taken action in the past year.

Action : This is the stage in which individuals modify their behaviour, experiences or environment in order to overcome their problems. Action involves the most overt behavioural changes and requires considerable commitment of time and energy.

Maintenance : This is the stage in which people work to prevent relapse and consolidate the gains during action. For addictive behaviours this stage extends from six months to an indeterminate perioed past the initial action.

This stages of change won’t work if there is not intention from the individual leading to Contemplation. Therefore, it is very important for a person to move from precontemplation stage to Contemplation stage because it is the starting point of everything. If the person is still in Precontemplation, there is no way that he would change.

Therefore, the key to change is actually to realize that we have a problem and a change is needed for better life. But unfortunately we are always blinded by our own preoccupied mind, custom, habit, culture and personal sentiment that we don’t bother to check ourselves wether we need change or not.

Therefore, the role of friend and advice come into picture. There is a need of constant reminder from friends for us to clarify our problem and to realize there is a problem that needs a change. Don’t leave our friends in darkness not knowing themselves wether they did wrong or not. It is the job of everyone to provide advice, giving options, to enlighten, to identify and to inform our friends that they have problems.

But everyone shall know that the basic changes need to be done is to return to Allah. Meaning, the basic principal is ‘Akidah and then we move on to other core area which is the understanding of Islam as a way of life. This core problem exist in our own personal world. Look around and you’ll see how many of us lack of understanding of Islam as a way of Life thus leading to deviated ways of life. It is the job of everyone to instill the understanding of Islam as a whole, then we don’t have to worry about other small changes in life. Once we understand what Islam is all about, then the changes of life for the better will come soon after.

As for our self improvement, make full use of the stages and see where we are in the stage and indentify what we need to reach our aim. Then we shall make progress based on the stage so that, the change will be permenant and we are not easily relapsed to our old habit.