So why do you emotionally resist change despite your best intentions? Just like failed New Years' resolutions. Would you like to break your unhealthy habits? To develop effective motivation to change, you must first learn how to lower your emotional resistance. Use the book Motivate Healthy Habits: Stepping Stones for Lasting Change as your guide for yourself and family.

Discover Your Path to Healthy Habits Talking the walk is only stepping stones away from walking the talk. Use the Motivate Healthy Habits (MHH) guidebook to:  Understand your challenge  Master the process of change  Rise to the challenge.

Why make it hard on yourself? Take the shortest path that generates the least resistance. Develop new skills to change your unhealthy habits and help others too. Discover what steps that you need to take Experience the MHH Learning Process Become the researcher of your own behavior change. Learn how to move beyond:

Surface change increasing your knowledge, having good intentions and setting goals, to Deep change exploring your feelings, views, values and why you do and do not want to change. Discover what it takes for you to change your behavior.

To begin this process, pick an unhealthy habit. Download a decision balance to clarify your issues about change. Enhance your awareness about how your feelings (or avoidance of them), views, motives and values influence your behavior and your decision about change.

Before using the decision balance on yourself, listen to an interview of a smoker who is highly resistant to change. To learn more about how to initiate dialogues about quitting with such another person, visit our "Free Resource" area and watch a video about communication micro-skills.

Women Making a Difference  in Men's Health Are the men in your life ambivalent about, or resistant to changing their unhealthy habits? Do they minimize the risks and harms of these behaviors? Are you more concerned about their unhealthy habits than they are? Does sharing your concerns make any difference? If not, you may be experiencing the downside of caring-frustrations and reoccurring conflicts that go nowhere.

Listen to Gandhi, "Be the change that you wish to see in the world". Improve your own health habits first before inviting family members to use the MHH guidebook. And if you change your family role from a "health advisor" to a "motivational guide", you will be more effective in helping your family make lasting improvements in their health habits. Learn more about the upside of caring