You’ve found something about yourself that you wish to change.
Now what?
Let me tell an example of how I approach this.

There was a period of 6 to 7 years where I barely, or never, brushed my teeth.
I didn’t visit a dentist, because all they’d do was tell me how badly I was doing.
For (hopefully) obvious reasons, I was not happy with this, but it felt very low on the list of priorities to fix this.
Furthermore, it felt like a huge thing.
I didn’t exactly hate that I didn’t do this, but I was aware that it wasn’t a good idea.
It wasn’t just an abstract “you should brush your teeth and I’m not doing it”, it was also clearly noticable in the health of my gums and teeth.

Fixing this in one big step, going from nothing to what I should be doing, would be a huge leap.
I’m sure there are people that would manage to do this, but I sure couldn’t.
I took a different approach.

An important thing to realize, is that it’s not like I made the choice not to brush my teeth, consciously.
Most days, I just walked to bed without even thinking about it.
The realization moments usually came during the day, or after I’d already gone to bed.
It was a habit.

Breaking a habit is hard.
It’s a default path that your brain takes, to save energy.
Breaking from that path requires quite some mental energy.
And especially if you’re depressed, which is how this bad habit formed for me, this is a huge barrier.

So I had to make it smaller.
I had to make it manageable.
And I had to make sure I recognized progress, however small.
Because that progress provides motivation for the next step.

I started with trying to brush my teeth in the evening.
Try to be conscious of the end of the day, and that I said I want to brush my teeth.
Start today, not tomorrow.
Make it small, and try to do it as soon as possible.

I, inevitably, failed on some days.
In those moments, I had the tendency to blame myself, to get angry at myself.
Part of me hated myself for not being able to even do something as simple as brush my teeth.
But instead, I made a conscious effort to say to myself: “okay, this sucks, let’s try again tonight.”
Or even, if it felt too hard: “okay, this sucks, we’ll pick it up again in a few days.”
I tried to accept that this is part of the process, sometimes you fail.

Sometimes I’d recognize this when I just laid down in my bed.
Other times, I might only realize after a day or two of not brushing, simply because I’ve been feeling so terrible that it didn’t even cross my mind.
In both cases, I’d try to respond to myself in the same way.
Even if it had been a week or more, which did happen, I tried not to punish myself.

And then finally, perhaps the most important of all, I made a conscious effort to recognize succes.
A small: “Yes, I brushed my teeth today, well done.”
A slightly bigger: “I’ve started again after I’ve stopped, nice.”
A larger: “I’ve kept it up for a week now, awesome!”
And the big: “Wow, I’ve been doing this for weeks.”
It doesn’t matter how small, but I found it imperative to point it out to myself.
It helped me to see progress, and that in turn helped me get going.

Now, I brush my teeth every day, in the morning, and in the evening.
Well, almost every day, there are still some evenings and the occasional morning that I skip.
But those are okay, I understand where they come from and I accept that.
I also floss, every evening.
I visit a dentist, and a dental hygenist, twice a year.

And the important thing to realize, is that I don’t make the choice to brush my teeth consciously.
Most days, I just walk to the bathroom without thinking about it.
It is a habit.
A new one, that took the place of the old one.

An improvement, of myself.