Leading Change/Personal Change

Leading Change/Personal Change Name Institution Due Date Leading Change/Personal Change My Personal Change My personal change goal, and it has been for a while now, is to eliminate the aspect or habit of procrastinating. Someone who procrastinates puts things away in the hope that they will do them later. However, as many will agree, when you procrastinate, you not only reduce your energy to do something but also reduces the resolve to work and deliver on something. Procrastinating has cost me a lot of opportunities, and I find myself in situations where I am blaming myself and further draining my energy to pick myself up and do something or finish what I started. I have learned, though the hard way, that a person who procrastinates cannot be an effective team player. When you cannot be effective on your own, it is quite difficult to effect change while in a group. This has thus forced me to want to work hard and to make sure I do not identify myself as a person who procrastinates. Initial versus Desired State versus Current State As many people who have developed the habit of procrastinating will agree, procrastination leads to disappointments and a person ends up blaming themselves. However, my desire to change this behavior has grown and is quite real. Below is a table showing my current state versus my initial state versus my desired state. Initial State Current State Desired State * I missed 80% of my deadlines. * I did not use or saw the need to use a planner. * I did not plan my assignments ahead of time. * I often had my friends around while working on my assignments. * I wake up late four times a week. * I always fear when given responsibility. * I meet 60% of my deadlines. * I happen to use a planner albeit not consistently. * I plan 40% of my assignments ahead of time. * I rarely have friends around while working on my assignments. * I wake up early three times a week. * I still fear when given responsibility, but I have learned to tame this fear. * I meet 100% of my deadlines. * Consistently using a planner. * Planning all my assignments ahead of time. * Having zero friends around while working on my assignments. * Waking up early every day of the week (even on weekends) Being free of fear regardless of the task at hand. Action Plan There are several things I plan to do to get to my desired state. I intend to keep striving and taking the necessary steps to make sure I am able to get to where I want. My action plan includes several things, and they are as discussed below. Firstly, I have to consistently use my calendar and set timelines and reminders for different tasks. The lack of setting timelines has always led me to think that I have things under control even when they are almost breaking down. Setting timelines is crucial as it will help me develop self-discipline and allocate time to different tasks. The second thing on my action plan is to make sure my weekly assignments and tasks are divided into small goals. Having weekly as well as daily goals can help me achieve or accomplish tasks that I could not manage before. When I have a clear goal in mind and am working towards it, I believe this will help me find meaning in what I am doing. I also need to find friends who will help me reach my goal. This is quite drastic or radical but I want to be a better person, and this involves taking extreme measures. I need to have friends who support me and want the best of me. So, I have to take measures to make sure my friends support the changes I intend to make. The last thing on my list is to reduce the time and money I spent on entertainment. On this one, I need the help of my parents and professor. I have already held conversations with my parents on how they need to reduce the money they send for entertainment. However, this requires accountability, and I want to ask my professor to be the person that I will be accountable to. Support Systems In my journey, I had to have a support system which mainly involves people who played a part in helping me get to where I am. Even though I never got to my desired state, I did indeed have people like my parents, my professor, and some of my friends who helped me make some crucial steps towards where I am today. My parents played a big part because they refused to reduce my pocket money but helped me draft a savings plan. I, therefore, continued to receive the same amount of money but they helped me devise a way of channeling a part of it to my savings. I not only learned some valuable lesson of saving but also managed to reduce the money I set aside for entertainment. Some of my friends held me accountable to the things I had set out to do. These friends consistently asked me how I was doing and whether I was working towards my goals. My professor also asked me whether I was implementing my plan and honoring my goal. These questions helped me grow and reminded me to stay true to where I wanted to go. What was the most challenging for you in implementing the change and why? And what did you do to solve this? In what way did you show courage during this personal change project? One of the most challenging things about fighting the urge to procrastinate is to admit or recognize that you are in fact procrastinating. For me, this was a major problem because I went around my day without knowing that I was in fact procrastinating. Even after I started working on this issue, I always found myself with less time to deliver on tasks, and this happened on a consistent basis. Admitting and recognizing that I was procrastinating was a challenge, and this led me to start implementing the necessary steps to make sure I can solve the problem. One of the things that I did to resolve the challenge was to identify the reasons why I was delaying tasks or putting away assignments. I then had to classify th...