1
Personal Change Project Proposal
                 Paige J. Ney
         Salt Lake Community College
COMM-2110-404-F22 Interpersonal Communication
                 Keith Radley
               October 5, 2022
                                                                                                  2
                                              Goal
       Communicate more clearly when I am upset with my partner so that conflicts will not
escalate into more significant arguments.
                                            Rationale
       When I am upset with my partner, I do not always communicate how I am feeling when
the event or behavior that upset me happens. Often times the behavior or event is something I
misinterpreted or was done unintentionally and not communicating until the end of an evening it
often results in an argument where both of us walk away upset.
                                            Strategies
   1. I will imagine what my partner is thinking (Beebe, Beebe & Redmond, 2021, p. 130) by
       doing this I will be socially decentering and might better understand my partner's actions.
   2. I will try to describe my feelings rather than evaluate behavior (Beebe, Beebe &
       Redmond, 2017, p. 166) by figuring out exactly how I am feeling and why instead of
       thinking about why my partner did what I did I can better understand and express by
       feelings.
   3. I will separate facts from inference (Beebe, Beebe & Redmond, 2021, p. 134) I often fall
       into the trap of assumption - that my partner is purposefully harming me. By expressing
       how I am feeling I will hopefully avoid these assumptions.
   4. When I do think there is something I am upset about I should be specific (Beebe, Beebe
       & Redmond, 2021, p. 160) about why I am upset and avoid generalizing statements.
                                        Implementation
       Describing when exactly there will come up is difficult as they usually come at random. I
will start implementing them this evening as I am seeing my partner later today. We usually see
                                                                                                    3
each other a few times a week so I will have many opportunities to implement my strategies. We
are already getting better at communicating, as this was a larger issue over the summer but as it
comes up in the future I will try to implement these strategies. If I do make any false and harmful
assumptions about my partner I will apologize (Beebe, Beebe & Redmond, 2021, p. 173) and
refer to my strategies more in the future.
                                                                                                4
                                         References
Beebe, S. A., Beebe, S. J., & Redmond, M. V. (n.d.). Interpersonal Communication: Relating to
       Others, 9/e. Retrieved from
       https://platform.virdocs.com/r/s/0/doc/2229365/sp/281868234/mi/825525368?cfi=%2F4
       %2F2%5BP700101551000000000000000000149A%5D%2F2%2F2%5BP70010155100
       0000000000000000149B%5D%2C%2F1%3A0%2C%2F1%3A0&menu=table-of-conten
       ts