I remember when I was a little boy I had one of those plastic “Big Wheel” toys that I would ride around my house. We didn’t live in a subdivision, so our house sat on a regular city street, but it wasn’t too busy so I would try to ride my Big Wheel on the street while my parents supervised from the back porch. Our street had a gentle hill going up behind our house and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get that Big Wheel to go up that hill. It just wasn’t designed that way. Later on, I got a regular bicycle that had a set of gears that made hill climbing MUCH easier.

So why am I writing about my Big Wheel? Because it has been my experience that changing behavior patterns in our life is about as difficult as it was for me to ride that Big Wheel up the hill behind my house. Sometimes, it seems impossible! But I want to offer you some hope, because I know that change is possible. I see it happen all the time. But I rarely see it happen in someone who tries to do it alone. Here are a few points that will help you “ride up the hill of change.”

• Change begins with negative energy. It has been said that change will only happen when the pain of staying the way you are is greater than the pain of change. At the risk of putting a negative spin on life change, I have to agree with this statement. Hey, if true change was easy then no one would be overweight, in debt, or in a job they hate! Change begins with a negative energy that is caused by discontentment or frustration about where you are with regard to a certain area of your life. For example, you may finally decide to do something about your weight when you go shopping and can find nothing in your size (been there, done that!) or realize you are paying twice as much for bigger clothes that don’t look that great only because you have no choice. You get frustrated or even depressed. The problem is that most people stay frustrated and depressed, not realizing they have just entered the process of change! Don’t stay there. Move on to the next step.
• Develop a plan that will work and work the plan. Here is where you need to align yourself with people that can help. Read, ask questions, or surf the internet to get the information you need to develop a plan that will work. For those of you that are looking at the need to lose weight, no matter how much, I highly recommend you take advantage of the Ultimate Body Makeover. Check out my Team100 page for more information.
• Build your team. Once you begin the process and start to see the results of your plan it is very encouraging. But don’t be surprised when you start to run out of energy, especially if you have a long journey ahead of you. I have now lost 102 pounds and I can tell you personally that I have had days where I didn’t want to keep going. But I have been sustained by the support, encouragement, and accountability (S.E.A.)  of many people in my life, and above all my faith in God has been instrumental in my success this far. The point is, you are going to need some people to help you push your Big Wheel up the hill at times. You need ongoing S.E.A. in order to climb the change hill, and this leads me to my next point:
• Be careful who is on your team. There are probably people in your life that don’t understand your passion for making this change. That is because they don’t share that passion and you are making them uncomfortable. There are people in my life that were unsure about the “new me.” There have been people that are no longer a regular part of my life because they had no desire to lose weight and my pursuit of wellness was more than they could handle, even though I was not forcing the issue with them at all. You have to be prepared for the fact that not everyone is going to understand and climb the hill with you. Beware of voices that tell you, “you’ve done good, you can celebrate today,” or “you’re making too big a deal out of this.” If you know that you have a Divine mandate to bring change into some area of your life, then be prepared for these attempts to slow you down. But for every one person that won’t make the journey with you, there are many more that will – and that is where you have to focus your relational energy. This is also a reason why a coach is such a powerful agent for life transformation. A coach is someone who believes in and works with you to find solutions that will help you reach your goals. Take a look at this page for more information on Integrate Life personal coaching. 
• It will get easier. It may be a challenge right now to confront an area of needed change in your life, but take heart in the fact that research has proven that you can “retrain your brain.” Given enough time, the right support team, and the proper attention to your spirit, soul, and body you will find new patterns forming to replace the old ones. You will begin to act, speak, and think differently than you once did and it will become second nature to you. That’s not to say you don’t have to stay on guard in that area at times, but more and more you will find the transformation is integrated into your fundamental being.