 So I'm recording this towards the end of January, which is when most people are starting to give up their New Year's resolutions. And whenever you're watching this, the message is the same, which is that personal growth and changing yourself is harder than most of us understand. And the reason for that is, well, there's a couple reasons. And I think it's important to understand the reasons if you are really serious and sincere about becoming better, changing yourself, behaving differently so that you can be a different and better person in the future. So one reason is our environment. By staying in the same environment, you have the same visual cues, auditory cues, physical objects, all of which remind you of your past conditioning. Basically, how you're already behaving today is connected to all of your current life, everything around you. This is why it is easier to initiate a change when you have moved somewhere or you're living somewhere for a while that's different. Or you have to do the behavior in a different physical space, whether you change your current room or you say, well, I've had some bad work habits. I'm going to work in a different room or a different place. Environment matters way more than we most of us understand because the current environment continues to reinforce whatever behavior, mode of being, way of feeling that we currently have. Really important. I mentioned past conditioning, which is another really, really important reason that we stay as we are for years and years because, well, we behave that way to cope with life, to cope with the people around us, to cope with our obligations, and we developed our coping mechanisms and our behaviors. And now we want to do something different and be something different. Well, that all those past coping mechanisms are very strong because they allowed us to survive, survive physically, emotionally, to make sense of the world, so to survive mentally. And so the past conditioning will keep supporting your brain. So that's the third factor I'll bring in. Your brain is so brilliant. I know this because that's the kind of the kind of people I draw to me are people who are so brilliant that they can make up all kinds of excuses to stay the same, to not do the different thing to change themselves, to change myself. I'm speaking to myself as well. We are so brilliant at the, are coming up with authentic feelings to not do, not rise up to the challenge of the vision we have for our life, for our spiritual growth, for our work, whatever, for our relationships, for our health, whatever it is, kinds of personal change you want to do. It is incredibly deceptive that we feel authentic about not changing. Isn't that interesting? We feel authentic about, oh, I don't feel like doing it today. It somehow feels authentic to us to not change. It feels natural to stay the way we are, and it feels unnatural to rise up to the challenge that we even want to rise up to. Our mind has some goals. It seems logical and reasonable to become like this, to become like that, to do this thing differently, to behave differently in this situation. But then when the situation comes, our past conditioning and our environment and our current relationships or whatever, they're all cues and reinforcements to feel authentic doing the same thing and being the same way. And I say that because authenticity is one of my highest values, and those of you who have watched my other videos know I talk about authentic this, authentic that all the time. But this is where authenticity is keeping us back. Authenticity, of course, can be defined in many different ways. One of the ways that it is unproductively defined is, oh, I don't feel like rising up to the challenge that I set for myself of doing this, doing that at this time, at this place, behaving in this way, or not behaving in that way, not doing this thing that I said I would stop doing. It feels authentic. It feels right to keep doing the bad habit, or it feels comfortable and it feels natural to not do the stretching of ourselves beyond what we currently are into more of our potential. It feels natural, it feels authentic, and you must catch that feeling, that understanding. You must become aware of authenticity when it's unproductive and authenticity when it is productive. It's very tricky. Like I said, our brains are so brilliant at making up these feelings and beliefs that keep us stuck, keep us the way we are for years with a particular bad habit or difficulty of forming this good habit that we want to form. I'm speaking of myself too. So, to become aware of the deception of authenticity, which moments is authenticity, so-called, actually holding us back and deceiving us. And this is why there is that phrase, which so many of us have a love-hate relationship with, the phrase of, fake it till you make it. Fake it till you make it, meaning, and people have applied this phrase in different ways. We often hear that about, you know, careers and you fake it till you make it or whatever, but I'm talking more in terms of personal growth change. Fake it till you make it is to, well, fake it is not authentic, right? And so when you are in the situation where you've said to yourself, I'm not going to do the bad habit, but I still feel like doing it right now. It's so natural for me right now. My brain is making up all kinds of reasons why it's right for me to keep doing this bad habit or to not do this good habit. It may be tomorrow, I'll feel like it. Maybe next month, when the start of the month or the start of the moon cycle or whatever, you know, maybe our brains will be brilliant at creating that. I will then feel like it. I will then, so that's again, fake it till you make it means, wait, okay, I'm aware now of my current deception being deceived by unproductive authenticity right now. And I will fake it. I will fake. I will do the thing that feels unnatural to me because I believe in my potential. And I can see why, how if I habituate this thing, it will feel natural at some point. And that's the tricky part. And that's the part that we don't believe in the moment. We believe it later. We understand it later. We understand it beforehand. But in the moment, we don't believe that if we do this thing again and again and again, this good thing that we want to become and do differently and do better. If we keep doing this thing and do it now and we don't feel like it, we will eventually change our habit of habit of thought and feeling so that we actually do feel like it in the future. But it has to take a lot of repetitions of faking it, of not feeling authentic in that moment. So that's my encouragement for you today. It's for you to observe that within yourself and within your effort of personal change and see if this will help you to fake it. So that you can be that which you would truly wish to be. I hope this is helpful. I am always, always am open to your thoughts, your own strategies. What works for you to secure personal, sustainable change? What works for you besides moving? That's hard. We only do it once every couple of years or once every decade, several decades if ever. Besides completely changing our physical environment, which is hard, what works for you to secure sustainable personal change? What have you noticed works for you? I look forward to your comments below. Thanks.