Is it possible to free yourself from bad habits? Can people really change in any meaningful and lost- lasting way? Can I change myself? The answer to each of these questions is “yes.” But you can’t change in 24 hours, as some programs and self-help books promise.
My research, as well as my experience and common sense, tell me that anyone can change , but at the same time, I know that people need a compelling reason to change.
What does it mean to change? To change means to establish new priorities—to choose a behavior that’s different from the one we’re using now. David Lucero is stuck on the street, waiting for a solution that doesn’t exist. When a real solution is right in front of his nose, he can’t see it.
I don’t know when his hearing started to deteriorate. And even though he can see, I have a feeling that he has been blind for many years. I don’t know the story of his life, but I suspect it is a story of bad habits and bad decisions.
I’m sure it’s a story filled with bad people and bad situations, too. But at some point we have to discard the factors, the people, and the situations that shaped us. Focusing on the past won’t help us solve today. At some point we have to take responsibility for our own lives.
I suspect that bad habits and bad choices are what brought David to this point —day after day and year after year—until he hit rock bottom. That’s always the way it is.
Learning how to free yourself from bad habits starts with the realization that we cause our own feelings. I am the major cause of my own problems. The moment I grasp that simple fact, I’m ready to step into the process of selfchange that will lead to freedom from the habits that keep me from living a more satisfying life. And when I’m free from my bad habits, the people around me will be free from the person I used to be.
All people can bring about superficial changes in themselves. But freeing yourself from a self-destructive habit like smoking or overeating requires a deep, long- lasting change. A bad habit is like an iceberg. You can’t beat the habit if you approach it as if it were only as large as what you can see on the surface.
