My Behavioral Contract

The client talked about how his procrastination has somewhat lessened since he has enrolled in psychology courses. We also talked about how he feels stuck when deciding if he should address issues or concerns with his wife. He noted that they both decided to seek marriage counseling to help with their communication skills.

Serial killers is a person that kill three or more people in a short amount of time. He or she murder one after another in a similar way with an inactive period between each murder. The motivation for murdering an adult or child is based on psychological gratification. The serial killer is normally an adult white male in his late twenties, who has killed four or more individuals in separate incident with an inactive period between. It is impossible to tell just by looking at a person who will become a serial killer, the traits of some criminals or serial killers appear to be similar most of the time. The types of behaviors

For my project I chose a good friend of mine and helping him focus on going to the gym. I know my friend has made attempts to go to the gym before but he struggled with feeling comfortable and with continuing the behavior. I would consider him in the action phases for purposes of the project as he had initiated the behavior before. I wanted to focus my project around going to the gym, in particular Planet Fitness. The guys model prides itself in being a “judgement free zone” for everyone. My goal was to use different behavior modification technique to not only make a change immediately, but one that could support and create sustainable change, with the hopes of going to the gym to become a habit. For the immediate time I used a 12-week time

My physical wellness continued to increase, my stress management as well and also my time management increased. Similar to my first year in the program as entering my second year my physical wellness increased. I’ve been trying to live a healthy life and having a better diet, I thank Colonel Oetjen for this and how he gave me a lecture in my first year after he saw me drinking my regular 1.5 litter soda, and explained how sugar was bad for you and how he said “white death’. I can say my stress management has improved because of my time management skill increasing, with priorities this better I have more time and are less stressed. I adapted a new quote over that summer to help me with my time management and that is Stephen Covey quote “The Key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your

My project began when I was first handed the self-change contract and had to ask myself “What do I really need to improve.” After a lot of thought and self-reflection, I thought that to boost my grades, improve my work ethic, and make things easier for myself I needed to improve my procrastination in regards to my studying and dedication. The first step was to identify everything about the problem. I took some time got a sheet of paper and made essentially a mind map without knowing what it was at the time.) I broke procrastination down and discovered that at least for me the two big things that were causing my procrastination were the “I can do it later” attitude, and the perceived difficulty of tasks. So after identifying the main issues, I had to figure out what I was going to do about it.

Week two has been a bit of a rough week for my behavioral change project. I became sick and was stuck at home for three days this week. This caused me to have a bit of a relapse because when I am not feeling well I turn to things that comfort me. A big comfort for me is technology and I hate to admit it but I binge watched a lot of television this week and I used social media quite often. The worst part is that now that the binge has started I am having a difficult time stopping again. I am so stressed now because I missed a great deal of class and as a result I feel extremely far behind and anxious about if I can make it up successfully. Yet, all I want to do is watch Netflix and in all honesty that is all I have been doing this week. After the first week, I felt so strong (naively so) but now I only feel defeated by my own mind. That is a hard concept for me to grasp because how is it that something that feels so good, relaxing, and happy is so detrimental to my life in the areas of education, work, and relationships? I suppose though that part of the reason we do this project is to see what will make us relapse. For me and

It was interesting to observe my baseline and intervention stress levels to see how it can change, just by implementing something as simple as exercising. Even though, I stated previously that I believe that numbers cannot be the only factor in determining if an intervention is successful or not, it is satisfying having a visual reference to see if it work, did not work, or where adjustments and/or improvements can be made. This was a positive experience for me because not only did it help me reduce my stress, but I also lost a few pounds in the process. This has made me want to continue exercising, which comes with many benefits and I will attempt to continue tracking my results and reach my goal of my average stress for the day to be at no stress (0) or little stress

In March, my PSYC class was presented with a challenge - to identify a personal improvement goal and to address this issue using an Immunity to Change map. My lengthy list of personal struggles was quickly narrowed down to one item with focused reflection. My improvement goal was to engage in productive thoughts and behaviors that would provide better time management practices. I was initially looking to improve my behaviors at home so that it would translate into success in all areas of my life including my career. With thoughtful observation and consideration, the Immunity to Change (ITC) map provided a developmentally raw process that continues to help me focus on my improvement goal today. Although I am still working on this goal,

During the school year, I need to efficiently manage school, a part time job, home responsibilities, many extracurricular activities, volunteering positions. My constantly packed schedule used to make me feel extremely stressed and anxious, however, I have since devised an organized system to effectively manage my time. The first step of my system is to jot down my upcoming tasks and meetings on my phone’s calendar app. Then I set reminders and checkpoint reminders to ensure that I don’t forget to complete the tasks and attend the meetings. In addition, I also have a to-do list on my phone that helps me keep track of what I need to get done. Because I do deal with a substantial amount of stress during the school year, I have settled on a few activities that have helped me manage stress. To alleviate stress, I love to exercise. Jumping rope or going on a run for just 15 minutes significantly reduces any stress or anxiety that I may be feeling. In addition, I also play guitar and piano to manage my stress, When I play music, all my worries just disappear and I get lost in the music. For the most part, my coop placement is not stressful at all. However, sometimes, I become slightly stressed out when my supervisor doesn’t give me any tasks and tells me to sit at the receptionist desk. I understand that she won’t always have work to assign to me, but I feel as though I am not doing anything productive and that I am not learning anything. This stresses me out because I fear that I won’t anything to write about in future coop assignments. There are also the occasional high-stress situations at my placement, such as when Mr. Deverett asked me to quickly make photocopies of a client’s documents, but he didn’t tell me exactly what format and order he wanted the documents to be in or how to operate copier machine. This task made me anxious because I felt like I had to

My overall experience with the behavior change project was positive, as I was able to successfully change my sleeping habits. Although there were times when sticking to my behavior change plan was extremely difficult, I was able to stay on track and change my sleeping habits. As a result of my behavior change, I now feel healthier and less fatigued. Because of these physical improvements, important areas of my life, such as school and sports, have improved also. My performance in the classroom and on the basketball court has noticeably become better after making this behavior change.

I chose the behavioral perspective because I think that it will be the most beneficial perspective for me in both my education, as well as in the workplace. I would describe this particular perspective as how ones behavior is influenced by the environment you are in. For example, when attending class at Phoenix College I show up to class on time and prepared with my book, notes, and ready to learn. It is expected to behave in a mature manner and engage in the learning experience. This is a perfect example of how the college classroom environment helps to determine my behavior as a student.

As part of the self-reflection exercise, I utilized a personality assessment to gain more insight into my actions. The assessment indicated that I tend to become overloaded and silently struggle to meet expectations. I subsequently recognized that this behavior was occurring on a regular basis at school, work, and home. Rather than ask for assistance with assignments and other tasks, I just push through it alone and become overwhelmed and frustrated.

Upon reading the article on Stress Management, I realized that procrastination can definitely cause stress in my life, unwanted and unnecessary stress.For years I have been in a fight with procrastination. I am ashamed to say that I have identified this issue a long time ago and have done nothing to get rid of it. I am even more ashamed to say that about 90% of time procrastination wins. Whether it be a simple wash the bathroom now or no more movies, not to mention take out the garbage now, I allow procrastination to win. I will always say, I can do it later or I have time. This is a negative factor that affects Time and Stress Management.

It’s a race to the finish line in a typical workday in my world, and that finish line is what I label to be the time clock. I have allowed this small, compact technology device that is screwed into the concrete wall, to control my life Monday through Friday. I know without a doubt, that if I punch that small button on time, the rest of my day is guaranteed to be smooth sailing. You see, I’m not a person that wakes up refreshed, smelling the Folders coffee in the morning, while birds are singing beautifully to me. I purposely pile on the stress and it creates this anxiety in my life, mainly in the mornings while racing to get ready and drive to work. I have no understanding to why I do this to myself, but I am my own villain and procrastination is my toxic poison. There are many people that have morning routines that they follow while getting ready, but me, I do whatever I want, when I want, and because of that, my morning time is limited. Some days I do not have time to pack a lunch, or even take our two dogs out to pee. Since my husband works third shift, I depend on him to come home and do it for me. Making the first move to get out of bed is always the toughest, plus getting ready for work is a preparation from hell. Then, I have to hustle and bustle, and drive like a mad woman to get to work on time.

The project sounded straightforward enough, it was to pick a behavior and modify it. The instructions were clean, cold, and calculated, akin to the mood of my beloved behaviorists. Understanding the genius of this project was not the difficult part, I was eager to begin to test my ability at applying the knowledge of behavioral modification. The difficult part for me was finding the motivation to act on that understand. At the start I thought it would be a simple application of knowledge that would require some jumping through hoops and mental trickery to become interesting. However, that began to change with each pencil mark on my behavioral log indicating that I’ve picked at my lip once again. As these marks accumulated so did thoughts that fed my curiosity. Like why do I engage in behavior that are obviously harmful, why are behaviors so difficult to change once they become habit and why do the answers still evade me ever after studying them? Thinking back throughout my life and seeing this pattern of acting without really knowing why that fit perfectly into that present moment drove me to a state of near epiphany. That process created a driving need to get the most out of this project making it successful because it taught me rich lessons about human behavior, behavior modification and my ability of creating behavior treatment plans. All of which are highly useful areas of expertise that will, if mastered bring wealth beyond imagination.