One of the main assignments in this course is the behavior change plan. These are the areas you will address in your behavior change plan. Each week you will be completing one part. See calendar for due dates. I have highlighted in blue the answers I expect to be included. You may do the plan in variety of ways, see your book for samples. You will be including information from some of your lifestyle assessments. 

 Developing a Plan for Behavior Change and Completing a Contract

Part I

1. Choosing a Target Behavior

Use your knowledge of yourself and the results of your Lifestyle Evaluation to identify five behaviors that you could change to improve your level of wellness. Examples of target behaviors include smoking cigarettes, not exercising regularly, eating candy bars every night, not getting enough sleep, getting drunk frequently on weekends, and not wearing a safety belt when driving or riding in a car.

For successful behavior change, it’s best to focus on one behavior at a time. Review your list of behaviors and select one to start with. Choose a behavior that is important to you and that you are strongly motivated to change. If this will be your first attempt at behavior change, start with a simple change, such as wearing your bicycle helmet regularly, before tackling a more difficult change, such as quitting smoking. Identify the top the behavior on your list that you’ve chosen to start with; this will be your target behavior throughout this workbook.

Choose a behavior that you need work on, in other words, a problem behavior. Examples are:

• Drinking too much
• Smoking
• Not getting enough sleep
• Stressed out
• Having arguments with loved ones
• Eating junk food
• Not having enough time for homework
• Not exercising
• Not controlling anger
• Any behavior you feel that keeps you from being as healthy as you could be.

Do not choose something you already do, like "working out," if you already do it. Even if lately you have not been very consistent, it would not be a good target behavior to choose for this assignment.

If you want, you may choose a target behavior and work on this plan for someone else. Perhaps your mother or girlfriend smokes, or your father eats too much junk food. You can do the assignment with them in mind. Of course they have to agree! Be really specific as we will be looking at measurable outcomes.

  I (name)                      agree to (specify behavior you want to change)

  I will begin on  (start date)            and plan to reach my goal of_________________                     (specify final goal)__________ by (goal date)                            . (Make sure you are specific.  Don't say 'eating healthy' state specific, measurable goal such as:  Eat 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day.)

2. Gathering Information About Your Target Behavior

Develop your own chart or journal to keep track. While it doesn't have to be as detailed as the one on page 11 (with so many columns on feelings and thoughts) it should keeps track of the problem, the time of day it occurs, the situation in which it occurs and a chance to record feelings.

Do this for at least 5 days.

3. Monitoring Your Current Patterns of Behavior.

Is there a pattern to your behavior? Does it frequently occur in certain settings or under certain conditions, or when you are feeling a certain way? What time of the day does it usually occur? Your task is to use the internet to discover as much as you can about your personality type. Keep a diary of where you visited, any test you took and their results, your strength and weakness, your stage of development. How will does this influence your pattern of behavior

For example:

• I discovered that I seem to use the vending machines everyday around 11:00 a.m. I then noticed that many times these were the days I did not get breakfast.
• Another time of the day when I tended to snack was at night while I was watching TV

4. Monitor Your Current Level of Wellness.

You will need to complete the Personal Exercise Plan Chapter 10 as well as the Nutrition Plan Chapter 9.

Determine your baseline health level in the area you want to change. i.e. weight  Weight in pounds, calorie intake, BMI, activity rating, flexibility, overall level of fitness). Some of these you will be assessing as part of other class assignments. Look at things that you can measure so you will be able to see success. If you choose smoking look at things like number of cigarettes you smoke, respiratory rate, ability to tolerate activity, lung capacity if you are able to test this.

Your behavior change plan must include a calorie need analysis, a BMI, an activity rating requirement and an evaluation of overall fitness. It can also include an analysis from any of the other areas of health i.e. mental, emotional, psychosocial.

Part II See Calendar for Due date

You will need to complete the Personal Exercise Plan Chapter 10 as well as the Nutrition Plan Chapter 9.

5. Stress Journal

1. Keep a stress journal for a week to help identify the general pattern of stress and any particularly problematic stressors that interfere with your wellness plan.
2. Describe the main causes of stress (stressors) areas in your journal and the behavior change you have chosen to manage those stressors.  
3. What potential health problems, (conditions), do you foresee as a result of your current stresses.
4. Analyze these stressors, and summarize the ways in which you are going to take action to relieve the stress.
5.  Add a section to your behavior change plan for managing stress that includes rewards. What are the rewards that work for you.  If self-help techniques do not provide enough relief, it may be helpful to read about specific areas, consult a peer counselor, join a support group, or participate in a few psychotherapy sessions.

 6. Summit a time management calendar for one week that shows how your are fitting your wellness into your time. See book for samples

7.Setting Goals

• Develop 3-5 smaller goals that will help you reach your larger goal. Be sure you make them time specific. Specify a clear cut goal you want to accomplish. And be very specific. Like I'll studying for four hours a day, or run three miles, or do 30 push ups, or can 24 quarts of tomatoes, or spend an hour crocheting.
• Specify when you'll do it. Like everyday, Monday through Friday, or every morning, seven days a week, or at 10:00 am on Thursday.
• Record your hit rate. Make a record of your successes and your failures, like a graph of the numbers of hours per day or a note on your calendar of the number of miles run each day.
• Make a public commitment. Tell someone what your goals and your deadline are. And even ask them to check on you to see if you got it done. That's a subtle way of arranging for a little mild social reward or punishment, approval or disapproval, depending on whether you get the job done. No big deal, but it helps.

8. Identify the self talk that you have to prevent you from being successful with your goal.

9. Examining Your Attitudes About Your Target Behavior

Explain what specific changes you are going to make to help you succeed. Give examples of how you will modify your environment. (Use what you discovered in step 3 to guide you.)

For example:

• Since I tend to snack at 11 a.m., I might plan to exercise then, or I might plan a snack and bring it (like carrots and crackers), I will plan to eat a small breakfast so that I will have less desire to snack at 11 a.m.
• If I tend to eat at night while watching TV, again I might decide that would be a good time to go for a walk. Or read. I might have some fruit cut-up ready in the fridge so that when I do want to eat and watch TV there is something health ready to eat.
• If I don't have time to exercise, a strategy might be to keep my gym bag packed and ready to go in my car. Or I might park in the far lot and walk to my class.

10.   Choosing Rewards : An example of rewards would be:

What type of rewards (positive reinforcement) work best for you?  The rewards for reaching my final goal will be:  List the types that motivate you and give at least two specific examples of one type.

1. consumable                     

2. possessional                    

3. manipulative      

4. social

5. activity

6. intrinsic

• If I meet my specific goal for the week, I will have some frozen yogurt on Saturday night.
  
• If I meet my specific goal for the week, I will go to the store and get a new CD
   
• Add an explicit penalty for failure, if you need to. Tell your monitor you'll pay them a quarter or a dollar or take them out to lunch for each of your failures. But keep the penalty small, almost at a joke level, otherwise everyone will start getting uptight, and you're liable to fib a bit.
  
• Think small. Don't try to make up for your past sins in a single day. If you've got a 20 pounds to loose, don't try to do them all right away. A1/2 pound a week may be infinitely better than you're doing now. Going for too much too soon is why many people fail at self-management. That's a big one so watch out for it.

Part III See Calendar for Due Date

11. Breaking Behavior Chains

        Identify the activities and situations that keep you from being effective with the behavior change. I have analyzed the consequences of my target behavior.  If I do not change my behavior, the following negative health consequences may occur:

12.Completing a Contract for Behavior Change

The personal contract summarizes all that you have planned and then formalizes your commitment. You may use the one that is given on page 13 of text or devise your own. (Remember — even if your contract states some of your specific goals and strategies, for this assignment they still need to be specifically explained in the appropriate step.)

13. Maintaining Your Program over Time

Begin your plan and try to follow it for one week. Write up how it went. Did the goals and strategies help? If you were to continue, would you keep things the same or how you might have to adapt some of your initial goals and strategies? Remember that staying with it means understanding when you have a bad day, that failures or obstacles might come up — adapt if necessary but get right back on your plan, treat every day as a new start.

I will use the following tools to monitor my progress toward reaching my final goal:  (For maximum points, you need to include a chart, graph, journal, list, etc.) (list any charts, graphs, or journals you plan to use)

14.  What Can Alter the Success of your Plan?

 Antecedents (triggers):  What kind of situations trigger the negative health behavior?  Do some situations or certain people bring out the behavior more so than others?  Or, if you are trying to start a health behavior, what situations get in the way of practicing your healthy behavior?

 Dealing with your antecedents listed above:  How can you deal with your antecedents so you will be more successful?  Be specific!

15. Who have you identified to help you maintain your plan?

You will have a greater chance of succeeding in your behavior change if you receive support from others around you.  Who have you identified to help you maintain your plan? How will they be supporting you? How will you manage lapses in your activities and maintance of your plan?

 If you want to stop a negative health behavior, what will you do instead of that behavior?   If you want to start a positive health behavior, how will you remind yourself to keep doing it until it becomes a habit?

Discuss how you will overcome peer pressure and communicate assertively with family, friends, coworker, etc. to work toward your plan and your goals.

16. List the behaviors that help you resist infection
In your  behavior change health journal, list the positive behaviors that help you avoid or resist infection. Consider how you can strengthen those behaviors. Then list the behaviors that tend to block your positive behaviors and put you at risk for contracting an infection including sexually transmitted diseases. Consider which of these you can change.

How can you really your behavior change really happen??

1. Modify your environment to control the environmental cues that provoke the target behavior. Believe that you are in control of your behaviors.

2. Reward yourself to reinforce your efforts when specific objectives or subgoals are reached.

3. Visualize yourself being successful in engaging in the new behavior. Avoid negative self-talk.

4. Involve friends and family. Encouragement, support, and praise will reinforce the new behavior.

5. Plan ahead for challenging situations.

6. Make a personal contract that includes goals, steps used to measure progress, strategies, and important dates. Putting a plan into action requires commitment.