You've tried everything, but it's still not working ...

With my Coach hat on, I observe lots of people trying hard to create change in their lives, whether it is losing weight, making more money, or steering an organization through today's hazardous global economy. The problem with most is they focus on the "trying" rather than the "doing". The subtle difference is intent. They would say they intend to be successful, but if we could monitor their self-talk, you would hear that most of the language is around trying. Luckily, if you listen carefully, they display their intent in what they say. They say things like, "I am just so busy, I haven't got time to do .." or "I am hopeless remembering names", or even "I am always running late, it's just the way I am".
It is too obvious just to point out how their language betrays their beliefs, and that their beliefs drive their intention, which in turn drives their behavior, which in turn ..... See why there is little point going there? What I find works is to pick a small thing that is important to them and coach them to success on that specific issue. In a previous blog I mentioned the Theory of Planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), this theory suggests that attitude, subjective norm (basically the attitude of the people around you), and perceived behavioral control (what control you think that you have over your situation regarding the specific change you want) are predictors of your intention to behave in a certain way (such as not eating stuff that is not good for you).
I remain a fan of Ajzen, but I would add another predictor called change readiness to the model. You need to be ready to make the change. Using the losing weight idea, I wouldn't start a weight reduction strategy the day you are about to go on a 14 day cruise, where all the food and alcohol is pre-paid. So if the person is ready to make the change, I then just need to help them refine their attitude towards losing weight, surround them with support that reinforces that attitude, and show them how to control the process. Now we have all Ajzen's predictors under control.
The specific how for each predictor varies from person to person, so if you have a specific situation, email me an overview and I can direct you. Once a person can prove to themselves that they can change the internal self-talk (beliefs) from "I am hopeless at losing weight, I never stick to a diet" to "wow, I did it, that's fantastic", they are ready to take on the world. Once I hear that belief I then ask, "so what else would you like to change in your life?"
The moral of the story is to start with simple things to change, modify attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and change readiness, and you create a new habit that this person (maybe even you) then always does what they say that they will. That belief/behavior triggers a lifetime of success. What is your starting point for such a belief change? Listen to your self-talk for the rest of the day and be surprised.