Alternatively, small problems or difficulties may take us off course and delay our progress. We may spend some time cycling between hope and depression and the longer we spend in this process, the harder we find it to build the belief and motivation required to take us to our results. As we pass through the confidence phase, we need to build up momentum to get to our result.

This needs a conscious last push. All too often, we get to 90 per cent and lose motivation as something new takes our attention: we have almost finished the change required, but not completed everything.

You may recognise the stages of this process from having gone through periods of change yourself.