Mastering Change: An Effective 5-Step Formula

How to avoid self-sabotage and transform without relying on willpower

Sep 02, 2025

Do you fail to stick to your New Year's Resolutions?

Do you feel stuck in a loop of trying to change but somehow ending up back in the same place doing the same things?

Do you think you lack the willpower to change in the way you want?

If you have had an experience of trying to make a shift in your life by changing your actions or learning new skills, but have found that you couldn’t make the changes stick, and you kept going back to old habits or patterns of behaviour, then this post will explain why, and give you an effective five step formula for creating personal transformation. It is not that you are a failure, or lack willpower. It is that you are trying to get your mind and body to do something new without updating your old subconscious operating system.

Moreover, if you are in a high stress state, making significant changes to your thinking and behaviour will be even harder because your body is focused on survival. When the body is in stress mode and operating from your parasympathetic nervous system, you are switched into operating from primal, automatic and habitual ways of thinking, feeling and doing things. The creative parts of your brain are largely offline and your body wants to stick with what is safe and familiar because it senses some form of threat or danger. For example, historically, it was not the time to be thinking about using new communication techniques when you and your friend were about to be attacked by a tiger and you just needed to yell what has worked before like “RUN!”. New things often feel overwhelming when you are stressed. To be able to take on new information, think creatively and effectively plan fresh strategies, then you need to be in a relaxed state.

(If you want some tips for quick and easy ways to reduce the amount of stress you are feeling and become more resourced to take on change, then I describe a number of ways to do this in the first four chapters of my book 10 Steps to Happiness.)

When you are feeling relaxed and ready to transform an aspect of your behaviour or life, then it is still not the most effective strategy to rush straight into just acting in new ways. One of the reasons for this is that even the thought of change, even if it is change that you desire, triggers some level of anxiety in your survival focused limbic system which then sets off a stress response in your body, and as we just learned, it is hard to take on new information and behaviours when your body is in stress mode. The other reason is that your mind operates on two main levels and both need to be on board for transformation to occur. Your conscious mind is the one that wants new things, rationalises that change is needed, comes up with creative ideas, and plans things out. It is the one that you are aware of as your thinking brain. Your subconscious mind is like a computer hard drive. It stores information and runs all your habitual and automatic programmes of thought, emotion and behaviour. Your subconscious mind loves to be energy efficient so it likes to keep things the same because change requires energy. It also loves what is familiar because its primary goal is to keep you safe. Thus, if you want to successfully change, then it is best to let your subconscious know that the change is safe for you first. If you don’t, then it is likely that your subconscious will create resistance in the form of self-sabotage. It also takes much less energy to work with your subconscious than to try and force change through sheer willpower.

Here is my 5 step formula for low stress, successful transformation that works with both your conscious and subconscious mind:

The Five Step Transformation Formula

Step 1. Awareness and Acknowledgement – I am here

The first step for successful change is to see and acknowledge that there is an issue rather than trying to distract, avoid or hide from where you are through busy-ness, responsibilities, alcohol, technology, entertainment etc. It is also important to do this from a place of self-responsibility rather than complaining or blaming. When you are blaming people, events and things outside of yourself for what you are experiencing then you give away your power to create change for yourself. You can only transform your life when you are ready to own the parts that you are responsible for because that is also what you have control over. (There is more information about how to live an empowered self-responsible created life versus a self-abandoning reactive life in the first chapter of my book The Great Life Planner)

"If you own this story, you get to write the ending." — Brené Brown

Step 2. Acceptance – It’s okay that I am here

This involves accepting the reality of how things are now even if you wish it was different. This doesn’t mean you have to like how things currently are; it means that you are ready to face that reality for what it is. It may seem strange that acceptance is the key to change, but when you resist something (want it gone, fixed, different) then it creates blocks in your mind, body and energy. When resistance goes, love flows and space opens. Transformation requires love and space.

Step 3. Courage and Permission – I can choose to be there

Healing and transformation require some kind of choice and decision to think, be and do something differently. If you keep doing the same thing, then you will keep getting the same result. Often it also involves giving yourself permission to make that change.

It is here that belief and identity shifts need to start happening. Your subconscious mind also needs to be starting to get on board with the change otherwise it will want to keep you stuck in your old mental, emotional and physical programmes because they feel safe and familiar. You do this by making the new experience feel familiar and safe through visualisation and noticing positive experiences of aspects of what you want.

Step 4. Action – I can do this to get there

Taking action begins to flow momentum in the direction of your new choice and identity. It is at this stage that it is helpful to start learning and implementing new skills and knowledge that are in line with who or what you want to become. Success comes when you transform who you are rather than just what you do. You have to become the version of yourself that does or has what you want.

Note that action is step four in this process. Many people make it step one and take action without flowing through the process of acknowledgement, acceptance and belief shifts first. When you do that, it can lead to self-sabotage because you are taking action from a place of resistance and stress, rather than from a place of clear and aligned inner truth.

Step 5. Transformation/Manifestation – there is here now

This is a key step that many people miss and it can significantly reduce your success. If you see what you want as something coming in the future and remain focused on how it is not here yet, then it is likely to always be in the future in some way. When you focus on the ways in which aspects of what you want are already here now, what you want is more likely to become a full reality faster.

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