Major change is an inevitable part of personal and professional lives—both changes that aren't desired and those that we actively make. For example, you may unexpectedly find yourself apartment shopping because your landlord has, once again, raised your rent. Or perhaps you have decided to find a new job that will help you develop the skills needed for a promotion.

When we have our lives ordered and planned, change can seem like a problem. Like any problem, dealing with change requires a solution. An important part of coming to a solution is understanding your personal philosophy of change. A philosophy of change is how you react to, frame, and manage change. In this assignment, you’ll examine how you personally deal with large changes in your life.

You will use your problem solving skill to analyze how you frame the problems associated with change and find evidence-based solutions to manage them. You will apply this philosophy to your experience with the 10 Skills in your next and final assignment. Additionally, this assignment gives you the opportunity to think deeply about your agility skill and how you can practice agility effectively in different contexts. It will also allow you to practice your innovation skill in exploring new ways of thinking and integrating different ideas and experiences to think about how you approach change.

Your goal for this assignment is to: Use your problem solving skill to create a personal philosophy of change that you could apply to managing change in your personal and professional life.

Steps to complete:

Step 1: Begin to understand how you manage change by thinking of a recent or past change and how you dealt with it. Complete the Chapter 7 Webtext Exercises [DOCX] before attempting the assignment.

Step 2: Use the information from your webtext exercises to write your ideal personal philosophy of change overview.

Include the following sections:

Each section should be 1–2 paragraphs long and must be supported by at least one source of your choice, for a minimum of three sources total. You must also detail why you chose the source and its relevance to the information you have included in your overview.

Some examples of resources include a work of art, quotations, an online article or written work with an identifiable author, and the philosophy of another person, group, or organization. Feel free to explore different resources, but ask your instructor if you have any questions.

Step 3: One way to keep your strategies for problem solving on your mind is to keep reminders around you in daily life. For this step, use your philosophy of change overview to create a visual component you can refer to every day. The ideal format is a final version that could fit on a single framed piece of paper or picture that could be posted somewhere you will see it every day (think office wall, desk at work, the bathroom mirror, or the refrigerator). This component can include inspirational phrases, images, or whatever elements you choose to include to reinforce your philosophy of change.

Step 4: Format your work according to the Strayer Writing Standards [PDF]. Please take a moment to review the SWS documentation for details.