Maybe old habits die hard, but they do die. Wishing alone won’t make new changes stick. It takes persistence and patience to get the payoff you desire.

Not just willpower: To succeed you’ll need awareness and dedication to change your habits. For instance, let’s say you’re trying to eliminate the habit of gorging on ice cream treats. You should start by ignoring the frozen aisle in the grocery store that contains the tempting treats.

Trying to eliminate a bad habit and/or start a good one usually takes about 21 days to stick—although tougher habits may take a little bit longer. Don’t run from a poor lifestyle habit. Instead, face it head on.

To get started, write down a habit change and chart out start-and-end dates that are 21 days apart. During that time, work on your change as best as you can.

Here are some key tips to help you change:

• Keep great company. One of the worst decisions you can make is to go it alone. Get close to those who support your changes and/or already shining examples of the habit(s) you want to emulate.

• Communicate. Talking to others about your changes can help you follow through with your goals and garner support from others.

• Plan it out. Acknowledge that you have changes that need to be made, decide on active steps to achieve your goals and then begin making small steps toward success.

• Journaling. To improve your chances of success, write down your victories, defeats and thoughts along the way. The more truthful and aware you are, the more likely you’ll be to succeed.

• Focus. Sure, there might be several things you’d love to change, but trying to multi-task habit change is a recipe for failure. Instead, focus all of your energy on one change at a time.

• Be positive. For starters, always address yourself in a positive way. For example, rather than saying, “I need to stop being fat,” say something like, “I want to exercise four times per week and limit my calories each day.”

• Don’t give up. It’s quite possible that you’ll have some misteps in your new venture, but that’s normal. The important thing is to minimize mistakes and keep trying. For example, if you were trying to lose weight and suddenly had a really bad day, the worse thing you could do is have another bad day right after. Instead, get right back on the horse.