5 Beautiful Stages of Emotional Cycle of Change

We, as humans, are in different stages of the emotional cycle of change. Change is the only constant in everyone’s life. The word Change itself triggers a lot of emotional responses.

Setting a goal included an abundance of change in the emotional cycle. But change is necessary to grow, improve, and become a better version of yourself. To change effectively, thoughts and emotions are involved.

Whether you are learning to ride a bike, learning new skills, or delving into your interest, emotions are the first things that change that involve the emotional cycle of change.

5 Stages of the Emotional Cycle of Change

The emotional cycle of change is a psychological model developed by Don Keeley and Daryl Conner. In this model, they have explained how humans face, react to, and deal with changes in their lives.

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The emotional cycle of change occurs in five stages:

1. Uninformed Optimism

This is the stage when we are excited about a new change. We have plans and see the advantages of the change, but we don’t know what it will take from us. Here, the benefits of the change are observable.

You are overwhelmed with the thought of change coming ahead, and you start to brainstorm and strategize things about your future.

2. Informed Pessimism

Change is the only constant. In Uninformed Optimism, there was excitement and happiness for the change that was going to happen. But when in reality, it occurs, the changes come with difficulties and challenges, and the informed pessimism starts.

Emotions will occur as frustration and anxiety 1kick in, and you begin to question whether the change is needed. Between the 2nd and 3rd steps lies the valley of despair.

3. Valley of Despair

This is the lowest stage of the emotional cycle of change. The person enters the Valley of despair. This is the stage where most people give up, and the pain of change is felt.

The quickest way to deal with this stage is to end the discomfort and return to how you did before the change was introduced.

This phase or stage is also known as Hopeful realism, meaning the sun will shine again.

If you can identify and persevere, why are you making the change? You will have a clear idea of what are your future vision.

4. Informed Optimism

This is the fourth stage of the emotional cycle of change. In this stage, the chances of a positive emotional zone and the possibility of success increase. One starts to plan the actions again in the hope of having a bright future, and your plan and actions are the benefits of your actions are beginning to bear fruit.

The only key here is not to be too stuck in a negative situation or in an emotional state of mind, struggling with the negative emotional cycle of change.

5. Success and Fulfillment

In the final stage, where you feel and see the change results, you will reach your desired goals. Here, the positive actions resulting in a flabbergasting shift in your behaviour pattern and the cost of change have been perceived as worth it.

The Personal Cycle of Change

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The emotional cycle of change is something that everyone goes through, and some are scared about what the changes are. Why are we stuck at one? Many people set goals but can’t complete them on time and get frustrated.

Let us understand the emotional change cycle that seeks to lift the covers on the mysteries of emotional change.

1. Awareness

Awareness is something we only try to do from the outside. Sometimes it is challenging to become aware of our internal behaviour that is causing problems sometimes.

We keep changing the outside one, that is, to change our external behaviour without changing how we see the situation on the inside.

When we are not aware of internal behaviour, we get emotionally frustrated2, and we tend to have reminders, someone to nag us to ensure we keep up with the new behaviour.

When we truly connect with the change from the inside out, the change becomes so much easier. The very step of change is to build awareness or to have an informed pessimism.

The first stage of the emotional cycle of change is embarking on a significant change is building a real-time awareness by asking yourself what the exact change you need is.

Why you need that change, ensure that you are more connected to your emotional brain than the logical brain.

2. Conscious Choice

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Once you have a deeper awareness of why you want the emotional change, once you are clear with the change, why the change is so important in one’s life, by having the accurate answer of what change is and why you need it to have a strong by creating an emotional vision of what looks good and by checking the commitments towards that change, it is the stage of informed optimism.

3. Conscious Change

Most people make the mistake of thinking that they have decided to change a few steps in a direction and believe they need to attain success.

The most successful change happens only when people consciously change things and create the right environment for the change.

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Final Reality Check

If you are thinking of having a personal emotional change to have a life of success and fulfillment, then go to the conscious change stage and rethink how deep you have gone. And the level of commitment of how much you want it. No judgment!

Questions to Ask Yourself With the Personal Cycle of Change 

During the process of changing emotionally, here are some questions that one asks themself to keep track of their emotional state:

1. Awareness

For awareness, or to keep track of awareness of your self here are some questions that you can ask are:

  • What is your current mindset or behaviour pattern?
  • When do you notice it most?
  • What is the specific change you want to make?
  • How will this change serve you?
  • What are the changes you are applying to have a better life?

2. Conscious Choice

  • What are the benefits you will have after hanging out?
  • What do you lose by not changing?
  • What is your level of commitment to change?
  • What is getting in the way? Barriers?
  • Reasons you may have failed before?
  • What is your conscious choice?

3. Conscious Change

  • What action do you need to take to make the change?
  • Do you need to make changes to your home or work life to support the change?
  • What routine are you going to follow that will make your changes easier?
  • What will be your process for review and reflection?
  • Do you need to acquire some specific skills or knowledge?

How to Have a Good Control of Your Emotions? 

There are ample things around that are not changeable, like, for example, the traffic or someone else’s behaviour, but there is one thing that can be changeable. The meaning we take away from events.

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Implementing the cycle’s five stages include Uninformed optimism, the valley of despair, Informed Pessimism3, Informed optimism, Success, and fulfillment.

It is all about controlling your emotions and maintaining the emotional Cycle Of change. When you learn to control your feelings correctly, you seem to derive more positive, productive meanings, even from seemingly negative events.

When you are the master of emotions, it is critical to understand that they are your emotions. We can damage our relationships and lives by letting emotions run and attaching negative meaning to our feelings.

Life is full of ups and downs. When facing any situation that elicits strong feelings from you, pause to consider what meaning you’re going to attach to it. You can develop emotional control by using one of the following tactics:

1. Take a Deep Breath

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Instead of reacting immediately to the situation, take a deep breath, take a long deep breath, give yourself a moment to process what happened, and take a step back before reacting.

2. Find Out What you are Feeling

It is very easy to say, “I am sad or angry because they have hurt me or made me angry”? Dig deeper into your emotions and search for an answer: you are angry because of their actions, or maybe you are afraid of being wrong or right

. Emotions are very complex; they make us go into doubt at times. Doubt towards the clarity of our goal, and worth.

3. Replace your Negative Thoughts

If your mind goes straight to how you’ve been wronged or how terrible everything is, divert yourself. Dwelling on negativity will only make you more prone to it, so focus on positive emotions.

Change your thoughts and change your story.

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4. Channelize your Energy

Humans’ emotions are indelibly powerful. Channelizing your energy into some sort of physical activity like running, going for a walk, running.

5. Exploring the Emotions

When you start identifying your emotions, major questions arise: Why do you feel the way you do? Talking with a trusted friend or family member can help you understand why you feel the way you do.

Once you understand an emotion, it’s much easier to control.

6. What are the Actions that Make Up Our Lives?

The way we feel in a certain way, we do certain things. From negative ones like smoking to positive ones like going to the gym, our behaviour patterns stem from our desire to meet some of our six human needs.

The behavioural pattern becomes our life story and what we tell ourselves about who we are and why we are that way. Instead of practicing emotional control, we likely feel adrift and powerless.

We can’t control the triggers, but we can shift the meanings we extract from the triggers. Controlling emotions is the only solution to get better mental health.

Likewise, everything has a formula similar to the process of controlling our emotions in mathematics, physics, and economics. We have a formula here too.

We can reduce the cycle of meaning’s complexity to a single formula:

Meaning = Emotion = Life

Final Thoughts

Whether you are making your emotions better by talking to your friends, a family making an effort to change your behavioural pattern along the way implementing a challenging strategic plan, resolving unhealthy conflict, or changing something in your personal life, it will be an emotional ride, you embrace your ride, with a new behaviour change.

Here, complete the knowledge on healthy behaviour that will hit your progress in a positive direction.

Read more from us here.

Also, read:

Famous People With Herpes

  1. Knowles, Kelly A., and Bunmi O. Olatunji. “Specificity of trait anxiety in anxiety and depression: Meta-analysis of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory.” Clinical psychology review 82 (2020): 101928. ↩︎
  2. Li, Nan, and Wen‐Xiong Zhang. “Frustrated Lewis pairs: discovery and overviews in catalysis.” Chinese Journal of Chemistry 38.11 (2020): 1360-1370. ↩︎
  3. Ziebland, Sue, Emma Hyde, and John Powell. “Power, paradox and pessimism: on the unintended consequences of digital health technologies in primary care.” Social Science & Medicine 289 (2021): 114419. ↩︎

Last Updated on by Suchi

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Juhika
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