How to Make Real and Lasting Change

It’s Not “Just the Way You Are”

Do you have a behavior you just can’t stop? Maybe an addiction? Maybe just a bad habit that you keep finding yourself doing? Maybe you’ve given up and told yourself, “That’s just the way I am.”

Hogwash. It doesn’t have to be the way we are. That’s a choice we make. We can make another choice. But just trying harder is not going to work. We actually have to do something different.

As long we’re still breathing, God’s not done with us. Sanctification is a lifelong process. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” is nonsense. That’s a choice the dog makes. Personally, this puppy wants to keep learning until the day I die.

“The Room Was Unlocked Again!”

Years ago I worked for a certain engineering company with government contracts. We had several “cleared” program rooms; they were special rooms with added security for processing classified information. We had different rooms for different programs, which could all be locked and alarmed independently.

We also had a serious problem. Every other month or so, one of the rooms wouldn’t get locked at night.

They were always innocent mistakes. Maybe the guy who unlocked the room in the morning didn’t know the guy who usually locked it at night left early that day. Or the person who meant to lock it up got busy with some other important project and just forgot, an honest mistake. Or some such thing.

But we had to figure this out. Leaving a special room unlocked is a security violation we had to report to the Customer. Too many of those and they cancel your program. This was a really big, serious deal.

After every violation, our boss would email everybody about the importance of making sure the special rooms were locked each night, reminding everyone to be vigilant and try harder.

After several episodes, I had a talk with our boss and our security officer. “Trying harder is not going to work,” I said. “We are all conscientious, responsible people. We can’t try harder; we’re already trying as hard as we can, and this keeps happening. We have to do something different.”

I had an idea from what I’d seen work at other facilities. We needed a physical token. Room tags. We laminated 4” x 6” colored cards: red, blue, orange, and green. Each program had its own color. We put each one on a lanyard so you could put it around your neck. When the room was locked, its tag hung on a hook outside the door.

When you unlocked a room in the morning, you put the room tag around your neck. It was big and clunky enough so you couldn’t go home and forget you had it. Before you left, you had to give it to someone else. If they accepted it, they were now responsible for locking the room that night. If you couldn’t get anyone to accept the tag, you had to go lock up the room before leaving.

It worked! Once we started doing this, our security violations completely stopped. We did something different.

So What Can You Do Differently?

Here are some ideas to get you started thinking about what you personally, in your situation, might do differently.

If it’s a social thing, like drugs or alcohol, you need to change friends. Ouch! That’s hard, I know. But if the thing you want to change is something you do when you hang around certain people, you need to stop hanging around those certain people.

If it’s a private thing, like porn, you need accountability. Throw away your laptop and disable the data on your phone. Buy a desktop computer and put it in a very public/open area of your house. Everybody can see what you’re doing on the computer. Alternatively, ask a spouse or friend to regularly review your browser cache to see want you’ve been doing. You can also buy software that blocks those sites.

If you’re trying to go to the gym every morning, set out your gym clothes the night before, next to a glass of water. When you get up, first thing, drink that glass of water. It hydrates your brain and helps you think clearly. Your gym clothes are there staring at you. It’s easy to put them on and go. This has worked wonders for me.

It’s a Kingdom of God principle that we attract to ourselves what we think about, what we dwell on. Write down your goals every morning and pray over them. It’ll focus your mind on your goals instead of your problems.

These are just some ideas. What ideas can you come up with for your situation?

Let’s Be Honest

Listen, if you don’t want to change, then don’t change. But be honest with yourself, and everyone else, about it.

If you don’t do something differently, if you don’t change your behavior, you need to face the truth that you actually want the addiction, bad habit, or whatever it is. You’re getting something out of it. It’s probably medicating pain on some level. Knock yourself out, you’re free to choose.

And honestly, if you’re medicating pain, just stopping the addiction won’t work anyway. You’ll just trade it for something else. You need to deal with the root cause of the pain. We write a lot on this blog about doing that.

But if you do want to change, what’s the first step? What can you do differently? Tell us in the comments, and please share if this post would bless someone else.