Beware of trying to change before you’re ready. What do I mean? I mean trying to change before you hate your bad habit and before you change how you feel about it. How are you going to quit a behavior you continue to rationalize?

Your thinking was distorted for a bad habit to begin in the first place. Until you have remorse and change how you feel about it, you will fall right back into your old trap.

The goal is to embrace reality and turn away from your habit.

“It’s bad, but not that bad. I definitely want to stop, just not entirely. I can still do it now and then in moderation.”

Thoughts like these will erode any grounds for lasting change. It is distortion like this which got you into trouble the first time. And it was the continued distortion which led you to create a habit.

There is just no way you will ever stop your bad habit until you fix the mindset which got you there. There’s no getting around it.

You have to turn away from your current destination before you can aim elsewhere. But for you to turn away, you will need to understand how bad it really is if things stay the same, and how good it will be when you change.

But until you begin to hate the thing which is dragging you down and embrace the good which comes from turning away from it, your recovery will be shaky at best. You will end up compromising and settling.

Instead of changing, you will take detours before bouncing back to the bad habit you want to escape.

Another phrase for turning away? Repentance.

Tune in next post for more.