key word here is "gently," because often times, we end up telling our loved ones to change their behavior by forcing down their throats. that only starts a vicious cycle of us telling them to "try harder" -> which leads to the person feeling "guilt" -> then eventually "failure" and then starting all over at "try harder" (there are four steps in total but i can't remember them all).
the key is to gently nudge the person in the right direction, where it is done in a timely manner and a gradual change (as a reminder, you should be doing this once you have reached the love stage of getting to know someone, not the opinion/fact phase). and this is where i fail miserably. a lot of times, i literally tell others to "try harder" and just try to force change without taking into consideration that it will only fail. i need to be gentler, i need to show more love, and i need to do it to myself as well.
there's a lot more to the sermon that i don't remember and did not mention, but i figured i would write this out now before i forget everything else.
