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The lacunar spinel GaV₄S₈ is a unique example of a polar noncentrosymmetric magnetic material which hosts an achiral Néel skyrmion lattice (SkL) below T_C ~ 13 K. Until recently, the bulk SkL phase was experimentally observed only in chiral crystals. In contrast to its chiral counterparts, the Néel SkL, which is described as a superposition of spin cycloids, is stable over a relatively large temperature and magnetic field range. While its proximity to T_C suggests that thermal fluctuations play a role in stabilization of the SkL, the phase evolution is not well understood. In this study, a detailed analysis of the phase transitions in a GaV₄S₈ single crystal are investigated. The linear and nonlinear components of the ac susceptibility as a function of temperature and magnetic field are examined for a frequency range, f = 11 – 10 ,000 Hz. Particularly, the metastability of the spin cycloid and SkL states are investigated via field history experiments. The hysteretic behavior of the first-order metamagnetic cycloid to SkL transition is presented via complementary dc and ac susceptibility measurements.