Changing habits takes time and persistence. It is like starting a new job, the first couple of weeks may be stressful and disorienting, and if you just hang in there, you will feel at home before you know it.

Three keys to successfully changing a habit:

1st – You must make a clear and intentional CHOICE to change.
Look carefully at your values and what is really most important to move your goals forward. There are  processes you can do for you to clarify what are your values . It is important for you to be connected to these so you can know what drives your goal.

A choice comes from a different place within you than a decision. Your whole being is fully behind a choice after you weigh all your thoughts and feelings. Choices empower you to  feel clearer and more competent. To get to the place within you, where you make a choice you can ask yourself,  “ What is my deepest truth after I fully engage with my thoughts and feelings?  When you make a powerful choice, you are affirming to yourself that you are willing to go to any lengths to make your commitment come true.

A decision is from  thoughts and feelings and is much more easily swayed and influenced by all sorts of mental and emotional changes.

To empower yourself in making changes, commit  to aligning yourself with your values.  Be clear about your intentions.

It is important to eliminate the word “try” from your vocabulary.  Commit to observe your speech. Our language can open or close possibilities for us.   When you say “I’ll try to do exercises,” you are leaving an open door to not doing them. “Try” includes struggle and failure. Your mind is a like a powerful computer and loves to rationalize and be reasonable. Skillful speech can support you in changing habits.

Part of changing a habit is knowing how to focus your intention and stay on purpose.  Relate to the expected set backs and failures with compassion and an open heart to learn.  How do you stay congruent with what you say you want ? Your mind can be powerful in supporting you to change your habits.  Or your mind can be stuck and rationalize why you act the way you do.

It is an art and practice to become a better observer of making choices and decisions in your life. They have different outcomes and results for you to experience in life. Choices empower you, decisions disempower you.

2nd – Act “as if.” 
Often when we change ingrained behaviors, it can feel unnatural. It may feel like you are doing something wrong, funny, or something that is just not you. In a way you are right. When you change a habit, you are by definition acting in a way that is ‘just not the way you have been.’ In a very short time however, it will feel more normal or comfortable and eventually it will seem strange that you ever acted any different.

3rd – Work on yourself every day.
The highest demonstration of a healthy positive self-image and self-esteem is the commitment to work to better yourself each and every day. You experience more awareness and presence when you realize your power to step up into your greatness. Often, it can be easier to default to your weakness with every challenge, distraction and decision. Working on yourself with consistency and persistence connects you to your inner wisdom and inner strength to become unstoppable and itself becomes a new established habit.

Changing unhealthy habits can take persistence, patience and lots of compassion. You might benefit from support from friends, people who love you, as well as a professional coach who knows the process of guiding you to fully be present and anchored in your new behavior.

You are worth it!! Learning how to gather new resources for you to grow can be an adventure. Knowing you are OK just the way you are AND being open and vulnerable to learn, grow, and be supported to release unwanted patterns that you have outgrown is an art and practice that takes a fearlessness to know your destiny. Trusting this process of knowing deeply the dynamics or change inevitably results in a powerful shift in the partnerships of loving yourself, your friends, and the world around you more deeply and effectively.