personal change paper

Your personal change project - apply Kotter's Change model to your life. (part 1)

Apply Kotter's Change model to your life. This will serve as a first draft to your Personal Change Paper. 

Each student will post about their proposed change. In this step, students will describe the change and explain Why is it important to you? (Purpose), What will be different? (Outcomes), and How they can change and influence the context and build coalitions to reach the goal (Process). Remember that this is the change that you want to monitor for the next four weeks. Students will apply the first 2 steps of Kotter’s 8-step change model. The grading in this week is counted towards the discussion forum (15 points for post, 5 points for peer reply). Aim for content between 350-500 words in your initial post. 

1. Describe the change you want to make: What is the change, how does your plan look like to translate the desired change to action, and what do you want the outcome to be?

2. Then use step 1 and 2 of Kotter’s 8-step change model and apply them to your change. Furthermore, any information from the readings that you think may be helpful to manage change is good to link to your personal change. 

For example: Step 1 Sense of Urgency: If your overall goal is to have an exercise routine within the next four weeks, your argumentation could be: “My motivation to get fitter is to be able to carry by baby around without getting to exhausted / to build a strong core and prevent back pain and thus lower any medical bills in the future”. These are examples, but you need think about the  why  (If you want to learn more about this concept, here is a neat TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action?language=en) and explain, based on the readings the urgency of this change. Lastly, also explain what would happen if you would not create a sense of urgency.

Step 2 Build powerful coalitions: Think about how can you transfer this concept from the organizational context to your life? Who are the buy-ins? Who can be your ally? Your children? Your partner (maybe if your goal is to lose weight, they need to stop having cake in the house)? Or is it solely you? You may want to explain other ways you can build powerful coalitions - ways that give you accountability: create a blog and document it? Who can you enlist to be on your team? Who is the right person to help and who can demonstrate teamwork? For example, someone who has undergone such transformation? Someone who has undergone such a process and can help you? A coach? Who is someone you can trust? Who could be someone who can be your cheerleader? Think outside the box 📦. Lastly, also explain what would happen if you would not have your coalitions to make the change.

The change I would like to make: The change I want to make in my life is to get rid of the bad habit of laziness and decadence. I used to be a self-disciplined person. In order to lose weight, I insisted on eating no starches for dinner and exercising for one hour every day for two years. In the past, I was also full of expectations for everything. But after spending so much time at home as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak, I felt I had lost my motivation and hope to do anything. Actually, I don't really have much to do, but I often put off important things to the last minute to excuse myself by saying, "I'm so tired today, I'm not in the mood. Why don't I do it tomorrow? I have other things to do today." This year, with the birth of the vaccine, the world is about to recover, and I think I should be ready. I want to change my slump and encourage myself to get back on track and become better and more disciplined.

Step One Sense of Urgency: Creating a sense of urgency is a key factor in making changes to myself. Since the pandemic, I have become decadent, have no interest in anything, lose motivation, and even often feel anxious. I feel that the negative energy has affected my daily life and even caused my mental health. I fear that when the world goes back to normal, I won't be able to look forward to anything and keep a positive attitude. If I don't create a sense of urgency and make a change now, then I will continue to be trapped in a negative mood, which will create more unhealthy physical and mental problems that will affect the quality and style of my life in the future. So I have to make a change and take responsibility for myself and my future.

Step Two Building Powerful Coalitions: In order to get rid of decadent bad habits, I need the self-confidence to believe that I can do it. In my life, my strong coalitions have come from my friends and family. I believe that if my parents and sister encourage, supervise and guide me from time to time, I can achieve my goal. Secondly, if my boyfriend and friends can comfort me or do something to make me happy when I am in a low mood, I believe I will forget those negative emotions quickly. I will make a change by writing a "To Do List" that will allow me to pursue my goals and communicate more with my family and friends.

Your personal change project - apply Kotter's Change model to your life. (part 2)

A) Update the class in a short paragraph (between 250-450 words) on your progress. What specific steps did you do? What worked? Are there any steps that need to be adjusted? E.g., did you plan to walk every day, but you found that starting with smaller steps (walk 10 minutes in the afternoon) would be better? Do you want some help from your peers? 

B) Kotter’s third step is creating a vision “the vision shows an end state where all the plans and strategies will take you. Visioning requires the creativity to see possible futures.” Take time to think about your vision, and formulate it in 1-2 sentences (e.g., My vision of myself for this change project is to be a well-rested person in the morning who doesn’t have to rely anymore on afternoon naps. Changing my behaviors to maintain a sleep schedule will get me to this vision). 

In order to change the bad habit of being lazy and decadent, I write a "to-do list" on my phone every week to remind myself of the things I need to do each week. What's more, I set the alarm clock or ask my family to wake me up earlier every day because I think I will have better energy and more time to do things when I get up earlier. On days off, I take a one-hour break after lunch and then do an hour of exercise. I've been using these methods for a week now, and I don't feel as tired and negative as I did a few days ago. Of course, my family and friends give me a lot of supervision and care.

My vision of myself for this change project is to get rid of the bad habits of laziness and decadence and try to become a disciplined person. It's more about not being affected by these negative emotions to my mental health and being responsible for my own future life. I need strong confidence and belief to support myself.

Your personal change project (part 3)

Please write about:

1.      Report on your progress: How did you monitor it, what are your wins, and where do you struggle? 

2.      Looking at Kotter’s steps 4-6: report on removal of any obstacles (step 5) and short-term wins (step 6). 

3.      Analyze your own emotions towards this goal and if you experienced resistance? If so, how did it manifest itself (e.g., complaining, skepticism, anger, impatience) Now that you are more aware of it, what will you do in the next weeks to minimize it? 

Since this is your only discussion post for this week, I expect engagement with the material, references to Kotter’s model, the readings on resistance to change, and (optionally) the TED talk. Posts that do not do so will receive lower marks. 

As I continue to monitor my progress, I find the method that I used are useful. Things like making a weekly list, going to bed and waking up earlier, and communicating more with friends and family. But at the same time, I also feel tired, in addition to work and classes, there are endless homework and life chores, I feel more and more tired and anxious. I've also noticed that lately I've become irritable and easily lose my temper with people around me. Possibly because of the long stay at home and the long depression, I felt that I needed to plan a short trip to relax. I told my friend what I thought and we planned to take a short trip next weekend.

In Kotter’s step 4 “Communicating the Change Vision”, I think the step I need to take now is to find out what is causing me to feel depressed and communicate with my family and friends about my emotional changes. I think this step is very important for me, because my own emotions have affected the people around me, and I don't want our relationship to deteriorate because of it. They also hope that I can get rid of these negative emotions and get rid of bad habits.

In order to move forward, in addition to my strong faith and the support of my family and friends, I think I should relax myself appropriately, don’t give myself too much pressure and go with the flow. I hope the short trip next week will help me relax and make better progress towards my goals.