Mika Clopten

Comm 2110
Final Report on my Personal Change Project
Date: April 22, 2017
Submitted to Professor Tamra Phillps

This paper outlines my personal change project. My goal was to limit my use of hand gestures
while speaking and improve most of my nonverbal skills to be able to have a better conversation
with other. To achieve this goal, I applied several strategies from the Beebe, Beebe, and
Redmond text, including but not limited to; eye contact, (p. 196) facial expression, (p. 197) vocal
cues (p. 198), and space. (p. 201) Some obstacles I faced where letting my facial expressions get
the best of me and being too preoccupied to make eye contact with some. Most of my results
were positive, although I still need to improve in some areas. One goal I have is to try to keep my
limit and control my facial expressions resulting in a more effective conversation.

Unwanted Communication Pattern

I have a habit of over using my hands during a conversation and not making eye contact with the
person I am speaking to. I want to change this because it can be very distractive. There are times
where I was talking to someone and I was over using my hands and not making eye contact with
them because I was preoccupied. This, however, can cause problems because the person I am
speaking with could be paying attention to my hands rather than the conversation; also, if I dont
make eye contact with them they might think Im uninterested.
Here are two examples:
a. The first situation is, I went to the grocery store, and I decided to go get some
lunch. I went to order my food and in this situation, talking to strangers/ordering
food, I hardly ever make eye contact with the cashier. In this situation, I caught
myself trying to avoid the awkward eye contact. The whole entire time I was
avoiding eye contact with this person, instead of showing them that I was
interested in this awkward conversation, I let them know I wasnt interested by not
making eye contact.
b. Another situation is, when I try to explain things to people I tend to use my hands
to keep me on track. I was sitting with my family just having a family chat, and I
was trying to explain how things were going with school and life, and I noticed
that I was using my hands the entire conversation. I noticed that my family was
paying more attention to my hands than to what I was saying. I felt bad so I just
stopped my explanation and I just sat silently for the rest of the conversation.
In both situations, I forgot how important it is to show people that you are interested in the
conversation and that my actions may be very distracting to others. In the first situation, I was
determined to avoid eye contact at all costs. I was not interested in showing that person that I
was interested. In the second situation, I was so interested in explaining my life to my family that
I didnt even notice my hands were doing all the talking. In both situations, if I wouldve
remembered how important both eye contact and limiting my hand movements were, I wouldve
had more positive outcomes.

Strategies
When I decided that I wanted to change this communication habit, I planned to apply the
following strategies in my daily conversation. I hoped that applying these would make my
conversation more effective. I wanted to experience more positive outcomes in my
communication.
The first strategy I felt would be critical in helping break this habit to work on not being so
preoccupied during conversations. I need to pay attention to other people and what they are
saying. This strategy would help me understand what the person is going through or trying to tell
me. This is critical in helping me break this habit because I need to put other people into
consideration and try to be more present in the conversation. Using the situation outlined above
with the cashier at the restaurant, I couldve showed them that I would more into the
conversation by making eye contact with them and further the conversation a bit, it wouldve
been a more effective conversation.
Second, I determined I would use more non-verbal skills. Beebe outlines several ways to express
yourself non-verbally:
a. Facial Expressions (197): This technique allows me to be more aware of what my
face is doing during a conversation.
b. Vocal Cues (198): These help the person you are communicating with aware that
you are listening to what they are saying and shows them you are an active lister.
c. Space (201): This shows the person what type of conversation youre having
based on how far apart you are from each other.
The strategy of improving other non-verbal skills will help to break my habit because I will be
too preoccupied with trying to use all these other non-verbal skills to over use my hand gestures
and/or not make eye contact with the person Im communicating with. I will also make sure to
use vocal cues every now and again, to reassure the person Im having a conversation with that
Im listening and interested in what they are saying.
In both situations, using the techniques of non-verbal skills would have been beneficial. If I
would have made eye contact with the cashier I couldve easily avoided the awkward interaction.
If I wouldve used facial expressions instead of overusing my hand gestures when I was talking
to my family, they wouldve been more interested in what I was saying that wouldnt have been
distracted by them. It wouldve been a very successful conversation.
Constraints
I ran into a few constraints as I attempted to change my communication behavior. The most
limiting constraint was simply because it is an habit and habits are very hard to break. Even
though I became more aware of my bad habit of over using my hands. I still found myself doing
it from time to time. I think Ive been doing it for so long it is going to take some time a little
more work for me to overcome this habit.
The other constraint I ran into was as I was working on my bettering my eye contact and trying
to use more facial expressions, I started to roll my eyes a lot more. I was using my facial
expressions more than I normally would have but every time someone said something I didnt
agree with or that annoyed me, I rolled my eyes. I think since Im trying so hard to break one
habit I am developing a new one.

Implementation
When I began to try to change my communication behavior, the first thing that I realized I was
going to have to overcome was what I outlined above: the constraint of developing a new habit. I
decided that the best way to overcome this was to start focusing on what the person was saying
and not let what they are saying get to me enough to feel like I need to roll my eyes.
However, one of the main goals I had for changing was to limit my use of hand gestures. I
havent successful limited them completely, there are still times where I over use them because
Im in a stressful conversation and it helps me get my point across. I realized that most of these
stressful conversations are between my sister and I, they start off like a regular conversation then
quickly turns into a big stressful conversation. I came to conclusion that I must change my non-
verbal skill based on the type of conversation I am having.
A specific instance where I implemented the outlined strategies successfully occurred on a few
months ago. Most of my friends come to me for advice or just when they want to talk about
things that are happening in their life. A friend of mine is moving to California because he got a
scholarship to go to SDU. He was telling me how nervous he was for the move and that he isnt
used to being away from his family. The whole entire time he was talking to me about his
situation, he had my undivided attention. I held eye contact (Beebe, 196) with him the whole
time. I used vocal cues (Beebe,198) like Ah and Uh-huh to reassure him that I was listening
to him. When I was telling him what I thought about the situation I hardly, if any, used hand
gestures.
Another time I successfully implemented these strategies was a few weeks ago when I saw a
high school friend for the first time since graduation. Weve been close friends for a while, and
we havent spoken in almost a year. We decided to meet up at SLCC because she was at the
campus I was at. When we first saw each other we immediately embraced each other, shortly
after that our conversation began. I decided that I would give her a little space (Beebe, 201)
because we havent seen each other since May and it would be unnecessary for me to be in her
personal space (Beebe, 201) so I decided on giving her social space (Beebe, 201) We caught up
for a bit then we went our separate ways.

Results
As I implemented the strategies outlined above I experienced a few significant positive
consequences. One important and significant positive consequence of using these strategies was
being one step closer to achieving my goal. The change in my communication style made it I
could avoid negative experiences that I would have faced otherwise. In my successful
conversations, I found that using vocal cues (Beebe 198) really showed the other person that I
was interested in the conversation and that I was listening to everything that they said. Both sides
felt like they were being heard and respected.
Another significant positive consequence was learning to control my face. I could control my
facial expressions in all my conversations. Regardless of how I felt I didnt let my facial
expressions control me or the conversation. Through this process, I could understand not just
how my communication habit affect my life, but now I am also aware that are both positive and
negative consequences in very conversation you have.
Although I didnt fully achieve my goal, I didnt experience any negative consequences with
applying these strategies, except I have applied all of them in my conversations. As I keep
practicing I probably wont perfect it for a while.
One additional strategy I havent tried yet is territory (Beebe 201) to better understand how
people use their space. It is good to know how other people are feeling in a conversation so you
know how to approach the situation. If I observe the way other people are handling the situation
then I can better communicate with them. Once I do that I will be able to apply all of my
strategies outlined above more easily. I hope that applying this new strategy along with the other
strategies it will allow to me to continue to be successful in changing my unwanted habit.

Works Cited:
Beebe, Beebe, & Redmond. (2014). Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others. Boston:
Pearson.