Building a Change Plan

This week, we are focusing on how to move from the engaging, focusing, and evoking stages of MI to the planning stage of MI. Today we are going to focus on building a change plan. We are also going to discuss your thoughts and feelings around influence and persuasion.

Please pick which activity (Activity #1 or #2) to share your thoughts on:
Activity #1: Building a Change Plan
Developing a change plan is not the final but a beginning step in planning for change. Implementing a change plan creates both a planned path and strengthens the commitment to carry it out. Let’s look at a change plan together. Imagine the person you are trying to help make a positive behavior change (e.g. yourself, someone else, a case example from class readings, etc.). Use this as an opportunity to connect the work to your personal/professional reason for being here. Adapt these questions to fit the example of a person you most likely would use MI with. Take a moment to answer this questions privately:
(talk about my fellow coworker in our architecture office, who needs help with not getting bogged down by the details, the person who needs to be reminded of the larger picture)
● Who is this person?
● The changes I/they want to make are:
● The steps I/they plan to take are:
● The ways other people can help me/them are:
● I/they will know if the plan is working if:
● Some things that could interfere with my/their plan are:
● What will I/they do if they plan is not working:
Link here: https://motivationalinterviewing(dot)org/sites/default/files/changeplan.pdf (Links to an external site.)

Please answer the following:
● Who did you choose and why?
● Share your change plan.
● What do you think will work and what do you anticipate as obstacles?

Activity #2: Influence - The Psychology of Persuasion
Switching gears from MI to Influence. Last week, people had varied reactions to the idea of ‘influence and persuasion.’ Let’s bring these thoughts and feelings to the surface and talk about it.

Please choose a few of these to share your thoughts on (does not need to be all 5 questions):
How do you define influence? How do you define persuasion?
Knowing the tools of influence are: reciprocity, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity - how do you imagine potentially using these in your life? Or not. Why?
How do you feel about using these tools in your life?
Why is it important to understand these tools (i.e. to be able to 1) influence, and 2) know what to look out for as a consumer)?
Other thoughts or feelings?