14. Managing change by integrating new behaviours into your life

Coaching

People who are good at managing change are not afraid to adapt. Adaptability is a primary attribute of people who live long and healthy lives.

A formula to promote adaptability includes

• a picture of what the results will look like,
• a plan to get there,
• trial, and
• practice, practice, practice.

Why so much practice? Because new behavior takes time to be internalized, or become second nature. Here are the stages you undergo when you are trying to integrate a new skill:

Resistance
• natural tendency to stay with the familiar

Being unsure
• when we start to apply new skills and behaviors, we feel phony

Assimilation
• with practice, we start to feel familiar with new skill or behavior

Transference
• able to apply behavior or skill to a new setting

Integration
• automatically and unconsciously performing new skill or behavior

Mentoring

In this exercise, think of a behavior you want to change or improve. Get a picture in your mind of what success will look like. Then, as part of a plan to achieve that success, schedule opportunities to practice.

Example:

Skill to improve
• Become better at listening to my colleagues.

Success will look like
• Me calmly listening and not interrupting.

Plan to get there
• Take time every day to work on listening and ask for feedback.

Practice schedule
• Everyday, just before lunch, I'll find a staff member and ask them for an update. My agenda will be to practice listening without comment and interruption.

Your skill to improve

Success will look like

Plan to get there

Opportunity for trial

Practice schedule

Next steps

Save and review
Review your responses, then save this module in your records to retrieve, review and redo later.

Download full workshop
On the home page of each workshop, you will find the "Download full workshop" icon, which lets you save all modules in that specific workshop at once. All the modules are contained in a single, navigable PDF file.

Downloading and saving all modules onto your computer or onto a disk allows you to access individual modules more quickly and easily than having to access each module individually. It also helps you quickly browse through the entire workshop content, providing you with an overview of how the modules relate to each other and which ones can benefit you the most. This option is most useful to those planning to complete numerous modules in a specific workshop.

Evaluate yourself
The online COACHING CENTRE is a self-teaching and self-evaluation tool. For feedback, consider reviewing your responses with a colleague or mentor. Look for opportunities to test what you have learned. Redo the module in the future, and compare responses from the two sessions to "test" what you have learned in the interim.

To move to another module
Click the back arrow in your browser to try another module. For more information, see the tips/help section on the online COACHING CENTRE site.

Give us your feedback
Your views, comments and suggestions are important to help us improve the online COACHING CENTRE to better meet your needs.

You can access the feedback form by simply clicking on the feedback link in the upper navigation bar on the online COACHING CENTRE home page. This form provides you with the opportunity to provide comments on both the OCC and other resources in the practicePRO website.

Please note that completing only this feedback form DOES NOT qualify you for the $50 insurance premium discount; to be eligible for the premium discount, you must complete the LAWPRO CPD Premium Credit Declaration.

Back to Getting Stress Hardy Workshop