Why are participants surprised that you expect them to change in a behavior-change program?

Your program promises people that they’ll make a change. It’s got change written all over it.

So why is it that when people come into a program they suddenly think,

“My gosh! You’re asking me to change? What’s this?”

No matter how much labeling you put on your action-taking program, you’re still going to get the majority of participants arriving in your program in contemplation. That means they haven’t yet decided to do the thing they signed up for.

That may be surprising. But think about who comes to a program…people who are not totally sure yet that this is the action they want to take. If we were sure this is the action we wanted to take, we would probably have just done it. We wouldn’t have conflict about it.

Programs exist to build that bridge between where we are and where we want to be.

So honor that state of contemplation. Design for it and you will get incredible results with your participants.