NEW YEAR. FRESH START!

We view the new year as a fresh beginning since it's the start of a year full of potential and promise. Let's celebrate our surviving the passing year and rejoice in the promise ahead of us. Part of our celebration should be contemplation of what we want to be in the coming year. That is really what the resolution is about—what we want to become. It is our vision the new and improved self.

I love this quote:"Good habits are hard to develop but easy to live with" and "Bad habits are easy to develop but hard to live with". 

I read that a bad habit takes at least 21 days. Of course, in difficult cases, it can take as long as a year. Here's an example of the process of how to change an unhealthy habit to a healthy habit. 

Habits are remarkable because they don't require thinking. You just "do it" for years until you find yourself changing the habit again.

Here are 5 easy steps for changing habits:

1. Awareness: You must become aware of your habits. What is this habit exactly? How is this bad habit or group of bad habits affecting you? How is this habit affecting others? For example, smoking often has negative effects on others as well as on you.

2. Wanting to Change: As someone with a health problem, you must decide that breaking bad habits through a conscious effort is a worthy goal. You must convince yourself that the change in the habit is worth the effort involved.

3. Commitment: You must be determined to do whatever it takes for breaking bad habits so that you can better control your life. You make a decision that "no matter what" you will change the habit. You do the work required to stop. 

4. Consistent Action: It is important to focus on changing just one habit at a time. Then, take consistent daily actions for breaking the bad habit that has been causing problems and take the actions to develop a new one. We suggest doing this process one step at a time rather than trying to do it all at once. It is about being consistent every day.

5. Perseverance: There will be times when you question whether it is all worth it. You'll say to yourself that breaking these bad habits is too difficult; that you are too "weak" to change. Your old self, often so comfortable living with the bad habits, is trying to hold on. Breaking your old patterns may require meditation and prayer.

Visualize regularly the rewards for following through and the costs of not following through on breaking the bad habits and especially the value to your future of building new better habits.