Program Evaluation

After 8 weeks of dedicating myself to this blog and to the improvement in my behavior, I can say that my behavior has indeed changed. Although not as drastic as I expected it to be, which is the main target of 30 mins of continuous exercise every weekday, I have been initiating in exercising 30 mins of continuous exercise a day 3 days a week, at least every other week. Whenever I have a hectic and busy schedule, I resolve to stretching instead. These things are great improvements for me if we consider my baseline behavior which is exercsing an hour a day in a dance class that I am required to take.

Parts of the Program that Worked:
Giving myself positive reinforcements really helped in encouraging me to exercise during the week. But after the week is over, they seem to negatively affect my exercising. I become complacent and tend to slacken off the next week after I give myself the reinforcements.

The program changes that I implemented also benefited me in this whole process.
Negative Punishment genuinely helped me with my exercising. During the days that I did not follow through on my plan the negative punishment such as, replacing coffee with tea and not listening to my favorite band bugged me soooooooo much that I felt compelled to exercising again the following week. Claiming working days and stretching as half-exercise is for me not considered cheating, but it is compromising for my busy schedules. There are really some times when school comes first before anything else, and I am to prioritize some things, this seems only fair.

Parts of the Program that did not work:
The positive punishment that I implemented did not help at all. Firstly, whenever I did chores as a punishment, it kinda annoyed me but all in all I liked it that I did chores so that I can help around the house. Doubling the amount of exercise is not that appropriate especially if I can't commit to doing my regular exercise in the first place. I would think that increasing the amount of exercise should be done if I am fully committed to doing the regular amount first and I am really finding it easy. I think one thing that did not make this effective is that I was the one who was giving punishments to myself. I guess next time I should involve another person so that I would make sure that the punishments would be implemented properly.

Heightened awareness to my behavior had a big influence on my efforts to maintain my behavior but it wasn't fully responsible. The rewards and punishments of operant conditioning also greatly affected my behavior. Anticipating for the rewards made me want to fulfill my goals for at least the week. Big rewards made me want to strive to maintain it for a long time (especially Disneyland). Punishments, even the little ones like not listening to my band or not having coffee, kept me focused on my goal because they really agitated me.

In all honesty, the only thing that would make any behavioral changes long term is discipline. No matter how many rewards or punishments influence my behavior, the decision to do something will always be up to the person at the end. If I am really concerned about my well being it will be enough to maintain a regular healthy exercise routine everyday.

The hardest part of this assignment is managing my schedule so that I can find time to do my behavior regularly. With a busy college life, studying and working, it is challenging to find time. Another hard thing about this assignment is implementing rewards and punishments that are suitable for my behavior and may have just the right effect.

The most valuable part of this assignment is being able to follow through on your program. The feeling of accomplishing something challenging is always fulfilling. This feeling inspires me to do my best at whatever I do. In truth, whenever someone gives their all in attaining their goals and dreams, whether big or small, they always get rewarded. The harder the journey, the better the reward. And this is ALL the TIME! :)

This assignment just confirmed my notions about operant conditioning. It made me realize that I already have been doing this in my life. Whenever I do well on something, I do give myself a reward. Whenever I don't do that well on something, I give myself a few restrictions but not as severe as what I have been giving myself in this program. I come to the conclusion that operant conditioning is very powerful, in pointing towards the right direction of your behavior. But in truth, personal willpower is even more powerful. :)

I want to thank everyone for their comments and suggestions throught this whole process, it has been fun reading your comments. ;) I am gonna miss everyone. Hope you guys have a great holiday season. :)