Change Your Habits, Change Your Life

By Terry Cole-Whittaker

Do you believe you can change your life for the better in 21 days? Well you can. It's a well-known fact we can change a habit in only 21 days.

We are all creatures of habit and habits determine what we think and feel and what we do and have. It is this simple. Some habits are deeply implanted in our subconscious and when we seek to change our lives old habits pull us back into the same situations, and conditions, repeating the same old experiences. Because of this, many give up believing it is not possible to be, do, or have what they desire.

Success is a habit and so is failure. Happiness and misery is a habit. Enthusiasm, dejection, negativity are all habits. Wealth is a habit and so is poverty. Science tells us it takes only 21 days to change from being a smoker to a non-smoker or to change any addiction and bad habit. Why only 21 days? Who knows why but it works. It just takes that long before the subconscious mind firmly accepts a new idea and way of being. Knowing this, we can work with it and use this phenomenon for our benefit.

21-DAY EXPERIMENT

Many years ago I set up a laboratory experiment to test the transforming power of 21 days. I wanted to know what people could accomplish by living in a positive, supportive, healthy, spiritual, and life-affirming environment for 21 days. I sent out a brochure inviting people to come for 21 days and participate in what I called the 21-day experiment. Twelve people responded. Everything was set up for the participants to become fully alive and enlightened in every way, physically, mentally, and spiritually. They were to be enveloped in a loving environment in which they would be served the most wholesome vegetarian food, attend classes, meditate, exercise, do crafts, express their creative talents, take nature walks, share and communicate, dance, do yoga, fire walk, pray, swim, sing and engage in various life affirming activities meant to bring forth their true vital divine selves. Each participant was leaving behind an old world and people they knew to enter into a new world with new people for the purpose of attaining their goals. The day arrived and the van from the airport drove up the long driveway to the back porch of the lodge. Out they climbed each looking worn out from the struggles of life. One woman, who brought her aged mother, had given up on life and was deeply depressed besides suffering from emphysema. She could barely walk from the car to the lodge, a distance of only a few yards. One man just lost his life's partner to a disease. Even though highly talented he had lost his will to work and perform and suffered greatly from loneliness and depression. Another man was addicted to antihistamines. A retired university professor sought to find her life's purpose. She didn't have a clue as to what she was going to do for the rest of her life. There was a man who had been a very successful spiritual counselor and teacher, but because of some set-backs and the loss of his wife, who had left him for another man, he was totally dejected having lost any remnant of self-esteem. Another woman came with her two small children, as she had just run away from an abusive husband. She had no idea of how she was going to support herself and her children, but was certain that in this 21 days she would get a new lease on life and discover her life's work. There were a few more and each was at the end of their rope and at the bottom of the pit of despair. In truth each was a victim of their habits of thinking, feeling, speaking, believing, and behaving.

You Cannot Change a Habit by Trying to Get Rid of It. But You Can Make a New One.

explained each was being controlled by unconscious habits, and to have a new and more wonderful life they would need to change their habits. Changing our environment is one way we change our habits. Changing our associations is another way. The principle behind this whole 21-day experiment is you cannot get rid of a bad habit. God knows people try to get rid of what they do not want, but for the most part they are unsuccessful. We all know people who keep losing the same twenty pounds over and over and yet can never keep them off. Perhaps you are stuck in a lonely place and desire to be married to Mr. or Mrs. Wonderful, but you have tried and all seems hopeless. There is hope, and the hope is in first knowing what you want, and second in building the consciousness and habits of thinking, speaking, relating, and behaving that will automatically attract to you the right person. One of the major secrets of life is the art of making new and life-affirming habits. As new habits take over and become dominant, old habits fade away and the person is liberated to live their dreams and achieve their topmost goals.

Twenty-one days later the group, one by one, began shedding the old consciousness of despair, dejection, poverty, sickness, and fear. They took on the mantel of enthusiasm, positivity, beauty, health and vitality, confidence, and prosperity. Every person, without exception, had remarkable positive changes in health, stamina, attitudes, use of talents, relationships, eating habits, weight loss, perceptions and general well being. On day twenty the woman who could barely walk on the first day took a five-mile nature walk with the group on Mt. Rainer. Each person was clear about their life's work and purpose. The addict no longer had any taste for antihistamines and was free of this bad habit. A couple of the participants quit smoking. A number had lost weight and were well on their way to regaining their vibrant health. Each was radiant and brilliant as if an inner light was shining brightly, and it was. The man whose wife had left him fell in love with one of our visitors and he forgot all about the woman who had left him. Our professional singer was busy on the phone booking many upcoming singing engagements and was enthusiastic about the songs he had written during the retreat.

Yes, it took only 21 days for people to drop the old and take on the new, and I had been a witness to the miracle. Not everyone can step out of their world for 21 days or can afford to attend this kind of a retreat, but they can change their lives for the better with my 21-Day plan.

"Observe your thoughts, for they become your words. Carefully select your words, for they become your actions. Direct your actions, for they become your habits. Examine your habits, for they will become your character. Improve your character, for it becomes your destiny." Unknown