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Reflect on what influencer tactics were used and why these would be important as you develop into a health promotion manager in your future career.

I chose the article called " Overcoming Career-Limiting Habits." Here are the tactics that were used in striving to encourage employees to overcome any career-limiting habits they may have, such as being unreliable, thinking "It's not my job," procrastination, resistance to change, and having a negative attitude.

1. Personal Motivation
One suggestion was to have employees motivate themselves by visiting their “default future”—the career they would have if they were repeatedly passed up for a promotion. This would influence people to realize how their actions now could affect their future careers, and hopefully get them to change their behavior.

Another tactic was to have employees reward themselves for reaching short-term goals by placing money at risk. For example, if they reach a goal, they can reward themselves with the money they set aside. However, if they fail to meet their goal, the money would go to support the political party they oppose. This would be especially be motivating for those who strongly side with one political party or another, but it doesn't have to be only political either.

2. Social Motivation
Social motivation is also used in the tactics that try to help people out of their limiting habit. They state that the career limiting habits that hold people back are likely enabled, tolerated or encouraged by other employees. Therefore, people can use positive peer pressure by surrounding themselves with hard-working people who share career goals. As we know, the influence of others is very powerful.

3. Social Ability
Changing habits requires help, so social ability is also necessary. The article suggests that people find a trusted mentor to encourage their progression and help them navigate the career development opportunities that exist at their organization. Many employees, especially if they are new to a company, probably don't know the process of advancement or how they go about doing that, so having an experienced mentor could be very beneficial.

4. Structural Ability
Structural ability is also used as a tactic. So, helping employees make new habits easier by using the power of their surroundings (such as moving offices if they would benefit from being closer to another team) can be very helpful.

These tactics would be important if I develop into a health promotion manager in my future career because I would be able to facilitate a more productive, engaging, and happy workplace for employees. Because career limiting habits can take a toll on a person's work and their overall wellness, knowing these tactics and implementing them in the future can help alleviate problems that would arise.

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Using the Influencer model, lets look back at your Genius Hour project.  There are three keys to influence.

1.  Focus and Measure - reflect on this concept and think about what you are really wanting to change and how would you measure that change and show success?

I think what we really want to change with our project is helping adolescents find their intrinsic values and purpose in life, ultimately leading to improved mental health. We plan to measure this change and show success by having a well-being assessment administered at the beginning and end of our program. Another way to show success would be to ask students at the end of the program what they learned throughout the program, and see if they provide any feedback about what they got out of it.

2.  Find Vital Behaviors - reflect and select the one or two vital behaviors that are really driving the problem you are addressing.  What are the MOST IMPORTANT one(s) to address?

The two most important vital behaviors are 1) believing and living life based on what other people expect and want, and 2) not having the opportunity to think about what their purpose in life is and how they can live accordingly.

3. Engage all Six Sources of Influence - reflect on the six sources of influence and think about your strategy and methods.  How would you plan to diffuse these into your project so you actually make a difference?

I think that our program focuses most on personal ability/motivation and social ability/motivation because it allows students to reflect personally and also form relationships with peers.
Here are some ways we can incorporate these into our program:

Personal Motivation: Find out what our target population enjoys doing and incorporate enjoyment into our solution (interests survey). Also, identifying what their personal motivators are will help them change.
Personal Ability: We need to make sure that our audience has the ability to participate in the program, so having it incorporated into the curriculum will help to do this. Students will also need the skills, talents, and understanding to help fix the problem, which we will give them within the program.
Social Motivation: Our target population is teenagers, where peer pressure/influence is immensely powerful. So, if we can have students form relationships and also see that their peers are participating too, then they will be more likely to respond.
Social Ability: We should consider whether our target population has enablers in their lives to help them address these challenging questions. These enablers should be peers, teachers, and family members. Peer and teacher support will be part of the program, but maybe we can include a take-home handout for students letting the parents know what they will be learning throughout the program as well.

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Chapter 2:8 in Influencer and Chapter 3:7 in the Worksite Wellness That Works both address how to motivate individuals in changing behavior.  How would you use this information to create a motivating way to get people to adopt the behavior you are addressing in your genius hour project?

Influencer talks about the use of incentives. They state that you first want to make sure vital behaviors connect to intrinsic satisfaction, then line up social support, and lastly use extrinsic rewards, or incentives. Our genius hour project can strive to adopt this to motivate adolescents throughout the program. First, forming intrinsic motivation will come from being placed in suitable interest groups and creating an intrinsic reason as to why this program will be important for each individual. Next, our program focuses on connecting with other students, and all of the topics/activities are group based, which will help to form social support. Finally, the use of extrinsic rewards could be used if deemed necessary, but hopefully we wouldn't have to have any. But, there could maybe be a sort of party at the end of the program, so the kids have something more to look forward to.

Putnam talks about five intrinsic motivators that can be used in our program to also motivate individuals. We can facilitate competency by having teachers facilitate conversations, but not overwhelming the students with too much information, and also incorporating activities to break up each session. We can facilitate autonomy by making sure we emphasize that each student is in charge of their own life (and finding purpose will focus on this as well), yet they have support of their peers and teachers if they need it. Relatedness will be facilitated by focusing on social connections with peers, making sure everyone is included, and by the face-to-face nature of the program. Purpose will be facilitated by the incorporation of purpose finding topics/activities, and by helping each student find purpose in why they are participating in this program. Finally, we can facilitate play by incorporating fun and engaging activities into the program, as well as having the students be broken up by interest, so they are able to do something they really enjoy.

I think the picture below will also be very helpful in addressing intrinsic motivation for adolescents!

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How does your Genius Hour project use or build social capital? Use specific ideas from the Influencer book to support your reflection.

One way our Genius hour project is using social capital is by providing assistance from others. Our whole program will consist of students getting to know each other to form relationships, and will be run by people who will be there for the students. Because our program is all about finding purpose, building resiliency and forming connections, these things will help everyone feel as if they are not alone, they can learn from one another, and help each other along the way. Another way our project builds social capital is by creating risk. It can be risky to open up and be vulnerable with other people, so by participating in our program, students will be able to encounter risk in a non-judgmental environment and learn that it is okay to not have their lives totally figured out, but take those steps for finding purpose and connection.

Putnam Chapter 3:9 covers experiential learning and concepts involved in that model.  How can you help those you want to change behaviors use the experiential learning theory and develop the growth mind set?

To help others change behaviors using the experiential learning theory is to meet them where they're at in the cycle. By getting to know the person, finding out what their goals are, and then seeing where they are at in the cycle, will help you get a better picture of what they are trying to accomplish and you will be better able to help them change behavior. Another way to help people change is to incorporate opportunities for practice, feedback, evaluation and application so people have the chance to learn and grow. To help people adopt a growth mindset, I think the first step is to start with the managers/CEOs of a company and make sure they allow their employees to feel like they can try new things and be creative without worrying about failure. This is key in allowing people to have a mindset bigger than just doing things because that's what they're supposed to do. In addition, incorporating things such as bathroom talk, poster conversations, social media campaigns, and mindful meetings to enhance thinking.

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How would you use Putnam's ideas of "Creating Meaning" for the population you are targeting in the topic for your Genius hour?  As the opening states, we have to help them know their "WHY."  What of the many ideas presented this week help you get buying from your group?

Creating meaning for our population of adolescents will come from identifying intrinsic motivators and purpose each person will find. These both will create meaning for why we will have our participants go through the program, and we can also emphasize that knowing their purpose and values, building resiliency, and forming strong relationships will help them be much happier and more successful in their lives.

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Genius Hour:

As you listened to the Genius Hour Presentations about the driving questions, consider your groups' focus and how on track you feel you are in moving forward to develop your project/product.

I feel as though we are more on track after presenting our driving question in class and getting feedback we can use to strengthen our project. However, I also feel like we don't really know exactly what we want to do to address our question (how to help young men and women find their purpose and build resiliency) and have some work to do in narrowing that down.

As a way to revisit where you started in your mind-map, ask and answer these two questions about your project:

Why do I/we want to be an Influencer?

I want to be an influencer because I want to help change other peoples' lives for the better, leading by example in my own life. Addressing our driving question, we want to be influencers in young men and women's' lives by helping them find their purpose, decreasing the likelihood of mental illness. As someone who has dealt with mental struggles as well as trying to figure out my purpose in life, I know firsthand how hard that is. If we can somehow really help people before they develop mental health issues and find their purpose so they don't have to go through those struggles, that would be amazing.

Who do I/we want to influence?

I want to influence everyone I come in contact with. Whether that be in personal relationships, classmates, co-workers, or random people I interact on a day-to-day basis. I want to show others that living a healthy lifestyle doesn't have to be as hard as it may seem and spread positivity to others. In our driving question project, we want to influence young men and women and help them see that they have a purpose in this world. Being able to influence young people's mental health will hopefully translate into adulthood and help them be more resilient with whatever life throws at them. In addition, being mentally well will carry over into all other dimensions of wellness and improve their overall lives.

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Consider the driving question your group constructed.

First:  How can you use the six sources of influence to create your solution to this problem?  Be specific.

My group's driving question is "How can we help young men and women recognize their intrinsic values and purpose so they can build resiliency and better connect with others to build crucial relationships and avoid isolation, normalizing, and stereotyping?" To create our solution to this problem, we can use the six sources of influence in the following ways:

1. Personal Motivation: Find out what our target population enjoys doing and incorporate enjoyment into our solution. Also, identifying what their personal motivators are will help them better understand why our solution can help their problem.
2. Personal Ability: We need to make sure that our audience has the ability to put our solution into practice. They need the skills, talents, and understanding to help fix the problem.
3. Social Motivation: We have to consider the social context we are working with. Our target population is teenagers, where peer pressure/influence is immensely powerful. So, our solution needs to take into consideration that people may have close relationships with others who might discourage making a change.
4. Social Ability: Continuing off of social motivation, for social ability, we should consider whether our target population has enablers in their lives to help them with this problem. Having a strong support system is crucial in developing a solution to this problem.
5. Structural Motivation: We can use this source of influence to help people understand why this problem should be addressed and how we can solve it. Incentives that would attract people to working on our problem would include pointing out what benefits would come to their lives after fixing the problem.
6. Structural Ability: To create our solution, we need to consider the population's environment-if it supports a change, and if there is a space where we can work with the participants.

Second: What information to date has been covered in the Putnam book that can help guide in your group's investigation into your topic?

One thing that Putnam talks about is how each culture is different, so each wellness program/initiative needs to be different, or individualized to that specific workplace. This would also be true for our topic, because each person is different and has different ways of learning, dealing with struggles, and coping mechanisms. Therefore, our solution should strive to address as broad of a population as possible, yet allow for differences within the population to address as many people as possible.

Another concept in Putnam is the fact that culture shapes engagement, and if workers aren't engaged in their work they are very unlikely to engage in wellness. This can be applied to our topic because social culture determines a significant amount of how people act and behave. For example, if one person wants to change out of a whole friend group that is against that change, that person is very unlikely to go against the grain and make a change.

Finally, Putnam talks about how it is important to start with what is right and focus on strengths rather than weaknesses. This may be the most important when working on our problem's solution because we don't want our audience to feel put-down or that they are lesser people because they don't know their purpose or are struggling with a mental illness. By starting with what people are doing right, we can show them how well they are doing and then work on fixing what is not going so well.

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Can you identify one way all the material we have covered (through Wed. Feb. 20) links together in a best, promising, or emerging practice methodology?

I think that there are many ways everything we’ve learned so far link together in a best, promising, or emerging practice. However, one specific way is how people interact with each other. This would be the social contagion theory and also people who act as influencers. I feel like no matter what area of wellness you look at, a huge factor in whether people participate is due to culture and what other people are doing. For example, at a workplace, if you see a lot of people going to the salad bar rather than getting a burger for lunch, you would be more likely to get a salad too to “fit in” and be healthier like your co-workers. Another example is humor and positivity. When others around you are happy, positive, and upbeat, you are much more likely to adopt those behaviors as well. I also think that influencers have a huge role in this social contagion theory. Influencers are typically just random people who do things a different way, but achieve amazing results. One person doing something in a way most people haven’t seen before can inspire others to be curious and want to change their own behavior. Finally, I think it is important for us, as aspiring HP/W professionals, to always remember these aspects of culture and society that encompass basically all human behavior. People are constantly watching to see what others are doing, whether we admit it or not, so environment is key in helping people change.

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Ideas can change the world, but only when coupled with influence - the ability to change hearts, minds, and behavior.

1. How can you interpret the information presented so far in the Influencer book to reflect on this statement?  What principles help you agree or disagree with the statement?

Influencer talks about how normal, everyday people have been able to change other people's behaviors. They do this through tactics such as setting SMART goals, measuring these goals, finding vital behaviors to change, and using the six sources of influence. By doing these things, people can make their ideas into a reality, and one that actually changes people's hearts, minds, and behaviors. It is essential to pair influence with an idea because you need that strong sense of direction and leadership to make an effective change, especially for people who don't want to change.

2.  What is your vision of wellness using the principals promoted in Workplace Wellness that Works book?  Use Putnam's to imagine what is possible to create an innovative wellness program.

My vision for a wellness movement is to have a workplace where people are free to express their true selves, be allowed to be creative and innovative, and achieve the highest well-being possible. Ideally, everyone would achieve Maslow's self-actualization stage. Achieving this vision would influence all essential elements of well-being.

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How can you take the various theories and ideas covered these first three weeks and apply them to your journey into being a Health Promotion Manager?

1. What made you curious this week?
Something that made me curious this week is the concept of being an influencer. I feel like it's really easy for people to tell others what they're "supposed to do," but it's totally different to actually practice what you preach. Being an influencer is essential in HP/W, and not only at work, but in our personal lives too. What we do greatly influences our friends and family, who influence all of the people in their lives, and so on. I also like the idea of making a movement, and not being afraid to be the first person to follow someone else.

2. What about your thinking, learning, or work this week brought you the most satisfaction? Why?
What brought me the most satisfaction this week was the engaging activities. I am satisfied that my activity was successful, first of all. I also really enjoy learning through activities rather than just sitting and listening to a lecture. It's much more engaging, and we can also get more ideas for activities we can use as future HP/W professionals.

3. How did you help the class learn this week? If you feel you didn't add to class or feel the need to contribute more consider what can you do next week to help other learners more?
One way I helped the class learn this week was through my activity. The main thing that people would have learned from this activity is why it is important to self-reflect and see how the answers to these questions influence our lives. They also learned more about the students around them. I also was the main speaker on Wednesday from my group, so I facilitated other learners by contributing to discussions and what our group came up with for different questions.

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Goal: Students will be given the opportunity to consider self-reflection questions while getting up from their desks and listening to empowering music.

Description: This activity will consist of five pieces of paper around the classroom, each with a different self-reflection question. Students will go around to each paper and answer each question. While this is happening, a motivational song will be playing to enhance concentration and empower participants. At the end, I will have five volunteers read each piece of paper so students can see what others wrote.

Here are the five questions:

1. What would you do if you know you couldn’t fail?

2. What is one thing you’re never afraid to do?

3. If you could make one change in your life, no matter how impossible it seems, what would that change be?

4. What would you regret not doing, being, or having in your life?

5. What’s something about your life that might surprise others to learn?

Rationale: The questions in this activity are meant to make students self-reflect and think about what their purpose is in life. According to the University of Minnesota (2016), knowing your purpose is beneficial in many different ways. Knowing your purpose benefits your physical health by promoting longer life, protection against heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease, and allows you to tolerate pain better. Knowing your purpose can also lead to better relationships because you are able to connect more with others. Finally, knowing your purpose promotes resilience because you are better able to bounce back from challenges life throws at you. Therefore, reflecting on the questions this activity provides will give students the opportunity to think about what their purpose is and help them receive the additional health benefits.

According to Levine at Mayo Clinic (2015), sitting for long periods of time has detrimental health effects, even if you exercise regularly. In addition to decreasing risk of diseases such as obesity and metabolic syndrome, getting up and moving helps trigger processes that break down fat and sugar in the body instead of stalling these processes. Therefore, getting up and moving around the room during this activity is very beneficial.

Finally, according to a Stanford study (2015), music engages the parts of the brain involved in paying attention and updating events in our memory. Therefore, music is a great way to promote attention and information retention from class as well as focusing on the self-reflection questions.

Practice: This activity is an example of best practice because it involves self-reflection/purpose questions, activity, and music. All of these things have proven scientific research showing their health benefits. In addition, these three aspects of the activity can be applied to many different populations, making it more of a best practice.

Bryant, S. (2014). Music Moves Brain to Pay Attention, Stanford Study Finds.    Stanford Medicine. Available at: https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2007/07/music-moves-brain-to-pay-attention-stanford-study-finds.html [Accessed 30 Jan. 2018].

Levine, J. (2015). Too Much Sitting is Bad For Your Health. Mayo Clinic. Available at: https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/adult-health/expert-answers/sitting/faq-20058005

Leonard, B. & Kreitzer, M. (2016). Why Is Life Purpose Important? | Taking Charge of Your Health & Wellbeing. Taking Charge of Your Health & Wellbeing. Available at: https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/why-life-purpose-important [Accessed 30 Jan. 2018].

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1. What was something new or thought about in a different way that you learned this week and why?

Something new I learned this week was the Social Contagion Theory, which I found both interesting and kind of confusing. I knew that different behaviors/attitudes/practices are influenced by what other people do, but I never thought about it in the way of how a virus spreads, and that people with a bigger sphere of influence will naturally affect more people. I think that is especially important in worksite wellness because the upper level people can drastically affect how other employees act and behave. If a CEO of a company is super supportive of a wellness program and actually participates in it, all of the other employees will see that, and be more apt to participate and change their behaviors as well because they see their boss doing it too. I understood what he was talking about, but wasn’t quite sure exactly how he placed people in the “web”.

2.Based on best practices, how can you apply what you know in your career choice as a Health Promotion Manager?

Based on best practices, there are many things I can apply as a Health Promotion Manager. I want to work in worksite wellness and/or fitness related job. For worksite wellness, I can apply best practices such as Dietary Guidelines, physical activity recommendations, stress management techniques, and more. For fitness, I can apply best practices such as physical activity recommendations, exercise programming techniques, and exercise testing procedures.

3.What do you want to learn more about, and why?

I thought the Social Contagion Theory was interesting, so I would like to learn more about that. In today’s society, it seems like everyone is so caught up in what other people are doing, so if a healthy lifestyle can be promoted and spread more, that would be ideal.