For many people, the beginning of each new year is filled with resolutions, which, after a few weeks, get abandoned. How many times have your best intentions failed? Although we are inspired to make a positive change, we soon lose our motivation and relapse into old habits. Life goes on the way it did before. After a while, we lose our enthusiasm and faith in ourselves and in others. When the urge to make a change occurs, we discount or dismiss it because we do not trust in our ability to follow through. One of the first secrets of change is to recognize and trust our ability to make a change and to sustain it. If we do not believe, then we cannot even attempt to change and will not discover our new abilities to create miracles. Then, on this basis of belief, by understanding how miracles occur, we can immediately begin to use our inner potential and create the changes we seek. To create change, we must trust in our ability to follow through and behave as if miracles are really possible. In all my workshops on success, procrastination ranks highest on the list of blocks that hold people back. They want to make a change, but somehow just can't do it. After taking a few steps forward, they are gripped by some mysterious force that restrains them. They are stuck in emotional quick sand. The more they struggle and try to change, the more deeply mired they become. Almost everyone can relate to this in some way. Unless we first learn how change is possible, we will continue to struggle silently or give up on making significant changes altogether. All life is dynamic and requires change, and life today is so much faster than ever before. Without a new and better understanding of how to make changes, we are doomed to suffer even more. On the brighter side, by applying a few new principles for making a change, life can genuinely be easier. Suddenly, instead of struggling and suffering, we find ourselves effortlessly flowing through life, making the necessary adjustments not just to cope but to make our dreams come true. Instead of trying to row the boat upstream, we joyfully move with the current. So many times in our relationships we quietly resolve to be more loving. Then our partner says or does one thing, and we are faced once again with a list of reasons why we don't want to try again or open up. Although we may love our partner, we no longer deeply feel that love. Most couples begin by wanting to share a lifetime of passion, then later they really don't understand what happened to take it away. While some are happy to settle for a more traditional loyal but passionless love, most are not, and so dissatisfaction and divorce has increased. Most couples start out wanting to share a lifetime of passion and later really don't understand what happened to take it away. In our business life, we resolve to be more efficient and move ahead in areas where we have procrastinated, only to backslide once again. When we are successful, we earn more money but still find ourselves in greater debt or more stressed so that we cannot enjoy the abundance we have created. Too many families are torn apart by the stresses and pressures of keeping it all together or doing it all. The simple life of a few changes a day is over. Business is now done at the speed of light, and if you can't keep up, then you miss out. This stress takes its toll not only on our relationships but on our bodies as well. While occasional junk food is fine, to depend on it makes us sick. We resolve to eat healthier food and exercise, and within a few weeks we are back to our same old convenient habits. In the West, we have more divorce, more debt, and more obesity than ever before. Although medicine has made miraculous advances, people are more dependent on drugs and doctors than ever before. If they are not troubled by extra weight, they are consumed with addictive behaviors like heavy drinking and overworking, or they suffer from allergies and chronic physical pain. In America, the three biggest problems have been increasing debt, domestic violence, and the rising cost of health care. These are the symptoms of our inability to change with the times. In relationships we accumulate baggage, in business we accumulate debt, and in our bodies we accumulate fat and disease. To different degrees, when childhood is over, we become caught in the momentum of our lives and little real or lasting change occurs. Unless this direction is changed, eventually it may lead to physical pain or sickness, decreasing success or the loss of passion in our relationships. To change this direction is what I call a practical miracle. This kind of shift seems like a miracle because, in the past, to make real and lasting changes was nearly impossible. Fortunately, times have changed. Increasing success, lasting love, and vibrant health are practical miracles within the reach of everyone. I began to realize miracles are real and possible when I personally witnessed several physical healings that modern medicine could not explain. People who were dying of cancer and unable to heal through modern methods were miraculously able to recover and become healthy again. These kinds of miracles have occurred throughout history and are well documented. Yet, the idea of miracle healings is often dismissed simply because science cannot explain it or it is not easy to repeat in order to study. Simply because we cannot explain miracles doesn't mean that they don't occur. Just because in the past they couldn't be controlled or understood, it doesn't mean that we can't understand them today or, better yet, learn how to create them in our own lives. When I witnessed many of these healings and then directly experienced a miraculous physical healing of the blindness in my left eye, my mind suddenly opened to the reality that miracles are real. They have occurred throughout history and are happening today. They occur not only in the area of health but in all areas of life. In my search to understand and explain how miracles occur, I discovered that the same principles that create a physical healing can increase success and create more loving relationships. I also learned that miracles can occur even when our problems are not enormous or life-threatening. Miracles occur all the time but we normally just call it luck. Attributing our success to luck, however, implies that we have no control over the good fortune we experience. The truth is, there are reasons why good things happen. Choices are made and the results come. When good results come and we don't know how we did it, then we call it luck. We call it luck only because we don't clearly understand how our beliefs, feelings, thoughts, attitudes, choices, and actions determine all the results we get in life. Through learning the way people think, feel, and so on, prior to a miracle or 'lucky event,' we can learn how to start creating practical miracles in our own lives. Throughout "How To Live For Change and Change for Life", we will explore and understand nine guiding principles that, when observed, can assist us in creating the results we want in life. Good fortune will not be left up to luck or destiny but can be something we consciously generate each day. The Placebo Effect: Often, when miracles occur, people attribute the good fortune to strong faith or to the power of suggestion. There is an incredible power in believing. However, positive belief or optimism is not enough by itself. It is only one of the nine principles for creating practical miracles. When a miracle healing takes place, sometimes, after a few weeks, the relief or healing disappears and the unhealthy symptoms come back. As a result, doctors and scientists are often wary of sudden, miraculous cures. While they recognize that such cures do occur, they feel that, in the majority of cases, the advancement is temporary and that the condition.