Healthcare Training Institute - Quality Education since 1979

Section 13
Track #13: Commit to Change

Table of Contents | NCCAP/NCTRC CE Booklet

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Note-Taking Exercise

What are three questions concerning the first step in your commitment to change?
1.

2.

3.

Below, write your answers to each question:
1.

2.

3.

What is the second step in your commitment to change?

Transcript of Track 13

On this track we will discuss The Power of Doing What You Don’t Want to Do

How would you define personal empowerment?  It’s your ability to set goals for yourself and follow a plan of action.  It’s your ability to stay on course, stay on task, and not get distracted.  Personal empowerment is your ability to keep your goals in front of you and to do what you need to do and not just what you want to do.  Being able to do what you do not want to do is the way to overcome procrastination. 

Overcoming your possible desire to dodge or avoid uncomfortable feelings—is the central component in these last few tracks.  If you worry; there are many things that you avoid doing or thinking about.

This track will discuss three steps in committing to change to implement some of the activity program changes suggested.

THE POWER OF CHOICE
This involves three questions for you to ask yourself:

What is my goal?
What do I have to do to get it?
Am I willing to do it?

When I ask you, “What is your goal?” I am referring to what you want the outcome to be. In this example, your goal is (pause) what??? You fill in the blank.  What do you want to have happen in your facility to gain support and cooperation?  Think for a minute. (MUSIC)  What you have just thought about is not going to happen unless you make it happen.  Ask yourself, “What do I have to do to get it?”  In order to, for example, get a resident transported, you have to do what?  Talk to the Administrator? D.O.N?  Charge Nurse?

This means that you may have to be uncomfortable depending upon your relationship with these people in your facility.  

It’s not the end of the world, but it actually involves your answer to this question: “Are you willing to do what needs to be done to, for example, get Esther transported? Are you willing to be uncomfortable?”

What are the costs and benefits of being able to do what is uncomfort­able for you?  What will you be able to do if you are willing to do what you don’t want to do? How will you be able to face the things that you are worried about regarding building staff support for your program.  How can you consistently do what does not feel good?  Doing what you don’t want to do means making a choice to DO it!  You might say to yourself, #1 “I need to be ready for my talk with these staff members.” or #2. “I need to have the motivation” or #3. “I need to know that it will work out.”

However, if these are your guidelines, then chances are you will NOT do what needs to be done.  Yes, I said you will NOT do what needs to be done.  First, if you are not ready to talk to your Director of Nursing about changing shower schedules, will you ever feel ready enough? What about number two, motivation?  If you experience extreme concern will you ever feel motivated enough? Or, number three, if you need to know that your request will have a guarantee of being met, does that become a good excuse for inaction?

However, if you step back and think a minute, are these three really needed? In fact, every day you do things that you are NOT “ready” to do, for which you lack motivation, and about which the outcome is uncertain—say, regarding talking to your administrator or D.O.N., when you go to a meeting you don’t feel ready for, don’t feel particularly motivated to go to, and don’t know the outcome of. How did you do it? You made a personal choice.

Ask yourself if you are really willing to pay the cost to make things happen in your facility to improve the quality of life for your residents. Are you willing to talk to department heads and give in-service training like that proposed in our Alzheimer's and Low Functioning Series?

SUCCESSFUL IMPERFECTION
If so the next step is to become successful at becoming imperfect.  Yes.. successful at becoming imperfect. This sounds like a contradiction, but if, say, you want CNA's doing activities with residents that have been left Success Therapy® bags in their rooms, you will not see results immediately.  Success for you will probably mean carry­ing out behaviors that will not have a perfect outcome.  Once again… Success for you will probably mean carry­ing out behaviors that will not have a perfect outcome.   Instead define success for yourself as a  means progressing through a series of imperfect steps.  However, every imperfect step you take forward—every action that you do imperfectly—will be taking you in the right direction.  You don’t have to have 100% cooperation to be successful.  If you feel that way you will probably always feel like a failure and use this as an excuse for inaction—you just have to get out there and TRY.  In short give yourself credit for your tries and keep trying to get staff cooperation and support.

We have already talked about how perfectionism makes you worry in order to find a perfect solution.  Perfectionism also may underlie your procrastina­tion. Agree?  If your goal is 100% cooperation to be successful you may think, “What’s the use of talking to my administrator and Director of Nursing again? This or that won't happen tomorrow again any way!”

However, you don’t need perfection—you need progress.   Thus the key to gaining department support and cooperation is to be­come successful at being actively imperfect on a daily basis.  Let me repeat.  The key to gaining department support and cooperation is to be­come successful at being actively imperfect on a daily basis.  Yes!!  So if you try, but don’t notice any changes, you ARE making progress. Commit to the behavior now—not to having the outcome of perfect cooperation and support.  Your efforts and your behavior is your success—not the result.  The right commitment is your commitment to action.  Not your commitment to get others to do this or that thing with a resident.  Please, please, and I mean PLEASE replay this track as well as the others over and over and over again until they become part of you, but especially replay what I have just said about focusing on your actions and not focusing on disappointment in the actions of others.  Then you are a success!!

 Now let's continue
Ask yourself if there are some things that would be a step forward toward your goal.  Let’s say that your goal is of non-activities staff doing activities with resident.  Are you willing to:
#1. initiate Success Therapy® type projects to be placed in Success Therapy® bags in resident's rooms available for staff,
#2.talk to your administrator and D.O.N.,
#3. give an inservice to CNA's, or
#4. talk to the appropriate staff when there is a lack of follow through?  
Each of these four steps is imperfect because your goal of staff doing activities with residents is not accomplished at the time you are taking each of these smaller steps.  The question is, are you willing to take these smaller imperfect steps to become successful?