Don't pretend you've already changed

You notice a fault—bad temper, laziness, a lie that keeps coming back—and you want to see it fixed now. So you adopt new phrases, big resolutions and gestures that show an improved version of yourself, even though inside everything stays more or less the same. Real change is less showy. You choose one specific thing, repeat it, fall, ask for help and start again. For a while the new desire lives alongside the old reactions, and that doesn't mean you aren't making progress. Being able to say "I'm learning" sincerely is worth more than acting out a goal you haven't reached yet. God works with processes, not with appearances.