28-Day Size Down Challenge | Week 3 Self-Reflection

With professional athletes, practice and good coaching help players master the “skills of the trade.” And the same is true for you. Making changes in your behavior requires practice and coaching, too. In this program, you’ll learn the skills of self-directed change. With these skills, you’ll be able to continue modifying and changing your behavior even after you’ve completed the 28-Day Size Down Challenge. There are three basic skills of self-directed change and you continue to cycle through these three stages until you achieve your goals.

1. Self-Monitoring

Self-monitoring is an activity where you observe those behaviors that you want to change. The behavior can be one that you currently do in excess and want to decrease (such as eating ice cream when you watch television). Or it can be one you currently aren’t doing frequently enough (such as exercising). To effectively self- monitor a behavior, it is important to record its frequency and duration.

2. Self-Evaluation

The process of self-evaluation involves comparing the results of your self-monitoring process to the goals that you would like to achieve.

3. Self-Reinforcement and Action Planning

Self-reinforcement is the process of reacting to the results of your self-evaluation. If a goal has successfully been achieved (example: exercise four times per week, 30 minutes each time), a reward is provided (example: a long, luxurious bubble bath) and the behavior is continued. If a goal is not successfully completed, think about what prevented you from meeting your goal and using the problem-solving process ahead, develop a revised action plan. Setting realistic goals is an important part of the process. Remember, goals should be your own, specific, and achievable. When you set goals using these principles, you also create a workable action plan. The remaining step of action planning is specifying precisely what, when, where, and how you will achieve your goal statement.

Activity:

In the space below, list a behavior you want to change AND how you would like to change it. The behavior can be one you are doing too frequently (example: eating donuts every day at breakfast) or not enough (example: I’m not exercising enough... I’d like to take a 15-minute walk at lunch).

Step 1. Self-monitoring

Determine how you will monitor the behavior listed above. (Example: in the case of eating too many donuts, you might choose to write down what you eat every morning)

Step 2. Self-evaluation

In the space below, note how frequently you executed the behavior and how this observation compared with your goal. (Example: “I usually eat donuts five days out of the week. My goal is to take a walk instead of having a donut.”)

Step 3. Self-reinforcement

Choose a non-food reward if you have reached your goal. If you did not achieve your initial goal, don’t worry! Instead, apply the problem-solving process to develop a revised action plan.