Personal Action Plan: Stress Management
Literature Review
In this section, define stress and discuss what you learned about stress from the course materials. Make sure to include relevant information from each module relating major course concepts to stress in general, the effects of stress, stress reduction, or stress management. Use APA style in-text citations and include matching APA style references at the end of the paper.
Introduction
Discuss your results from the Holmes and Rahe self-assessment and your interpretation of the results.Describe your current situation (how things are right now) with regard to stress and then describe your ideal situation (how you would like things to be).Journal- Action Plan Step 1 should be used as the basis for this section of your action plan.
Analysis
What would be the results if you do nothing with regard to your current situation regarding stress? What could you potentially gain as a positive in your life from making a change with regard to stress? What do you perceive as potential challenges to making changes with regard to stress? How could you overcome those challenges? What resources/strategies am I currently using to manage and reduce stress? Journal- Action Plan Step 2 should be used as the basis for this section of your action plan. Include the table from your journal entry:
Table 1. Current Resources and Strategies for Stress Management.
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Resource/Strategy
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When used (daily, weekly, monthly, annually)
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Results
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How effective are your current resources and strategies? How do you know?
Action Planning
What would it take to reach your ideal vision for stress reduction and management? Write this part out in words- you are summarizing the information that will appear in the tables that you include from Journal- Action Plan Step 3: Identify three goals (DAPPS): dated, achievable, personal, positive, specific; Prioritize the goals: List in order of priority; Specific action steps; What resources will you need to achieve your goals?; People besides yourself who could help you achieve your goals (family, friends, advisors, instructors, etc.); How will you know if you achieved the goal? (What will you see, feel, know, or experience?).
Table 2. Three DAPPS Goals
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Goal
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Where I am now
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Where I want to be ideally (no time limit)
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Table 3. Prioritized Goals
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Goal
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What happens if nothing changes?
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What happens if I achieve this goal?
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Table 4. Specific Action Steps
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Goal
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Daily
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Weekly
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Monthly
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Annually
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Table 5. Resources Needed to Achieve Goals
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Goal
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Resource
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Where/how to get the resource
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Table 6. People Who Can Help Achieve Goals
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Person
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Relationship
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How they can help (be specific)
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Table 7. Indicators of Goal Achievement
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Goal
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Outcome
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Date to achieve
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How you will know
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Conclusion
How likely are you to implement your personal action plan? How confident are you in your ability to put the plan into action? What results do you expect?
Reflect on what you learned during the process of creating your personal action plan- not just about stress but also about the structured approach to planning for change that you experienced throughout the course. What worked best and was most helpful to you about the process? What were the challenges you experienced in the process? Do you think a similar process could be helpful for planning other types of changes? Would you recommend this type of change planning process to others? Are you likely to use this type of planning process again in the future?