You have good intentions and want to overhaul your habits to make your lifestyle healthier. But you have a busy life and somehow you never get started on that weight-loss program.

How do you break this pattern of inaction and finally make the commitment to get healthier? The answer can be found by studying people who have succeeded.

Research reveals that many success stories begin with a turning point, an experience that prods people into changing their ways. That “Eureka!” or "Aha!" moment often comes in the form of surviving a personal health scare, experiencing the death of a loved one, losing an important relationship, or hitting an emotional bottom.

"Sometimes there's a lightning bolt flash of insight and other times these changes occur after serious self-reflection," says William R. Miller, Ph.D., professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of New Mexico who has spent years investigating how people change their health behavior.

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