Have you ever listened to a talk or read a book and felt so inspired you thought you could fly to the moon and back?

Your actions change.  The way you feel about things even change.  You feel love for all people.  You feel forgiveness for all people. You feel boundless hope that finally you are changing in ways that you had always hoped.  

You know now that all things are possible.

But before you know it, things begin to turn to the previous normal.  

• You begin to act the way you used to. 
• You start to feel the way you used to feel. 
• Everything eventually gets back to the way it used to be.

You then feel like a failure.  You feel like things never really had changed.  It was all an illusion.  Eventually, you forget all of it, and your life slings back to the way your life used to be.

You think to yourself:

•  People don’t change.  
• People cannot truly change.  
• Things don’t change.  

But wait!  Things do change.  People do change.  Life does improve, and pains do heal!

• Malcolm X went from being a misdirected troubled person to a heroic awe-inspiring person.
• Victor Frankl went from being a tortured victim to a heroic life changer.
• Maya Angelou went from a sexually molested child who stopped speaking to becoming an amazing woman who wrote prolific and beautiful books of poetry and prose that inspired millions of people.

Your change didn’t last because the habit required for actions that needed permanent change did not get established.

Your brief change took place with the inertia of inspiration.  You were inspired, and you had changed.  Your old habits took over and brought you back to the way things were.

Habits are powerful!

You have to practice habits that bring about the change and then learn to practice the habits that make those positive habits a reflex.

For example, let’s say that you have been too easily vulnerable to getting your feelings hurt by others.  You have always had what they call “thin skin.”

You can practice certain daily routines that help you build your sense of self and self-awareness and seeking the truth of things.

One of your daily practice is to ask yourself a question that challenges you to rethink the meaning behind what has just hurt your feelings.

You practice enough times to get to a point where when hurt feelings happen. Your mind automatically reacts by asking your mind to think about the meaning behind what had hurt your feelings critically.

You then get to a point where the hurtful moments do not last.  You then get to a point where you don’t feel much hurt because you are already asking the question.

You then get to a point where you directly go to asking the question, and this all happens so fast that your mind spits out an answer while you have intact your sense of who you are.

Philosophers and teachers have taught us that changing is like sweeping the floor. You sweep it once, it gets clean, but you have to sweep regularly to keep your house clean.

The internal cleansing is the same.  You must keep sweeping regularly.  What makes it remarkable is that your sweeping becomes automatic at some point that you don’t even realize you are regularly sweeping. 

Becoming a regular sweeper of your emotional life is your goal.  

Good habits are just as sticky as bad habits, so when your good habits become bound to you, you are on a roll.

There was a time feeling lonely was my life.  I can say that because it was a prevailing shadow inside me, over me, and on me at all times.  I operated based on that looming entity.

My life was revolved around trying to keep from the feeling of it.  I surrounded myself with socializing, being around people, talking with people, and anything that was a distraction from it.  I did just about everything that I could to avoid being alone to run from the potential pain of loneliness.

It wasn’t until I had arranged my life one day in a way that forced me to spend eight weeks all alone and discovered what it was that I was running from and the reason for the terrible loneliness that I had been avoiding as much as I could all my life. 

Today, I don’t feel lonely.  

Because of the work that I do, I spend a lot of time to myself, unlike how my life used to be where I was not alone most of the time.  But while being alone most of the time, I do not experience loneliness.

Here is what I did!

(You will need two notepads (3 by 5 & 6 by 9)

1. The first step is to make a decision that you want this change. The inertia, the push that thrusts you into the transition so drastically that people around you that know you deeply will notice your difference and think that a miracle has taken place in your life or that you are a rare breed or are doing something impossible.
2. For the next eight weeks, take the following steps every day.

Why eight weeks?

1. Expert opinions have been between 30 days to 60 days to build a lasting habit.
2. I did this same program for eight weeks, and core habits that have changed my life have not only maintained but has deepened and continues to expand and deepened even now effortlessly because of those eight weeks.

Here is the routine I followed for eight weeks, and you can adapt it to what makes sense to you:

1. I woke up at 5:30
2. Exercised
3. Showered and dressed
4. Made coffee
5. Sat down at my desk with my coffee
6. I wrote in my journal.
   1. What am I thankful for?
   2. What is my current life’s goal?
   3. What 2 to 5  things can I do today to move my goal forward?
   4. What kind of a person do I want to be today?

Doing that grateful list starts your day off right.  It opens your potential with an open and fully loving heart.  

Making the list of to-do keeps you mindful of essential things in a grander scheme of things. You will use your talents and passion and your personal resources, time, energy, and faculties instead of wasting them.

Answering the question about your current life’s goal keeps your mind on task about your goals so that you can stay focused on it, even if it is in the back of your mind.  So many people want to do things, even set goals but fail because they don’t stay focused on it.  When you mindfully write down what you want to do, you are setting yourself up for success because you are keeping your conscious and subconscious mind focused on it.  

When you come up with those few to-do list, you are taking your goals to the next level.  You are thinking about what needs to be done, writing it down, and giving yourself action steps to take that will bring your life forward.

Your answering the question about what kind of a person you want to be today is powerfully helpful because you are reminding yourself of your values and ethics.

Stoic philosophers did this to make sure they were living up to their true potential in being a truly good person.

It is so important to do because most of us just go through life, missing our values and ethics in ways that we conduct ourselves.  By asking the question and answering them, you are reminding yourself of who you want to be and starting your day with those self instructions in your mind. You are going to go through your day mindful of who you want to be.  You can then let your actions throughout the day be dictated by what you wrote down that day.

Carry out these steps every day for the next eight weeks, and you will discover things about yourself that you never thought you would.  You will heal powerfully.  Your healing will compound in ways that you had never seen yourself heal.  You will gain wisdom and insights that will amaze you again and again.