100 Ways To Motivate Yourself, Third Edition

73. Use the 5 percent solution

Many years ago, when I first began considering the idea of changing my life, I went through some emotional mood swings. I would get very high on an idea of who I could be, and I’d set out to change myself overnight. Then my old habits would pull me back to who I used to be, and I would become demoralized and depressed for weeks, thinking I didn’t have what it took to change. As the weeks went by, I finally caught on to the idea that great things are often created very slowly, so why couldn’t great people be created the same way? I began to see the value in small changes, here and there, that led me in the direction of who I wanted to be.

If I wanted to be someone who was healthy and had good eating habits, I would ...