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Ch. 1 Make a list of three to five personal goals, either things you want or things you want to stop. Think them over and revise them over a couple of days. Select one, not too trivial, with a reasonable chance of success. A truly major project may take more than a few months.
"If you want something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done."
Ch. 2 Part One: Specifying the Goal. Specify your goal as a behavior-in-a-situation that you wish to increase or decrease. If your goal is a behavior you want to decrease, you should be able to state the goal as a behavior that you want to increase that is incompatible with the undesired one.
Part Two: Anticipating Obstacles. Make plans for what to do when you make mistakes. Make plans for tempting situations. Make a list of reminder to give yourself when tempted. What are the delayed punishments for your unwanted behavior ?
Make a list of the people who are going to remind you.
Answer the following questions about your self-efficacy beliefs:
1. Will you carefully read the chapter notes and ask questions and carefully attend to the progress of others trying to change ? OR
Will you buy the book and carefully read all the additional material, especially the examples and case studies ? Both approaches mean thinking about what you read, applying the ideas to yourself, and figuring out how to use the ideas so that you can change.
2. In order to change, you will have to try out the ideas in these notes or the book. Will you try the ideas before evaluating them ?
3. Will you be able to carry out all of the exercises at the end of each chapter, in which you apply the ideas from the chapter to your own project ?
4. A worthwhile change will almost certainly require hard effort. Are you willing to try to change even though it will require hard effort ?
Make plans to increase your self-efficacy beliefs by taking the recommended steps. Write out counter-pessimism statements.
Make a list of the pros and cons of changing, short-term and long-term. How are the pros more important than the cons ?
Part Three: Setting Goals. Establish subgoals leading to your final goal, and make plans for reaching them. List the reasons why accomplishing these target subgoals will further your life goals.
Finally, write your self-contract. Sign it.
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If you would like, you can send your homework to the group or to me personally (until I have too many of them to deal with).
"To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt." - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American women's rights advocate (1815-1902)
"What is not surrounded by uncertainty cannot be the truth." - Richard P. Feynman, Nobelist, physicist, raconteur, bongo player, safe-cracker
dcduring@...
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/SelfExperimenters/
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