I have dogs and live in the country. As a consequence, unless going out somewhere I usually spend my time running around wearing shirts, jeans and trainers. These are all clothes which are suitable and practical to brush off the dog hair and stay reasonably tidy and on my feet when walking and living with them. Recently I tripped and noticed that the sole of my favourite trainers were coming off a little at the toe and I decided to go and buy some new ones. The choice was amazing and so large that it was initially a little bit overwhelming. To help me decide I made a list of what I required from a trainer, firstly I eliminated running shoes. Although I run it is never intentional, always based on pure necessity, usually after one on the dogs and always just a short sprint. Next I eliminated negative heel and ones designed to help me tone up. I need desperately to tone up but trying to balance whilst walking the dogs seemed a little too much like extreme sports for me. Working my way down my list of what I wanted in training shoes I was finally able to focus my attention on an all-round, comfort, walking trainer. Next choice was colour and then design. Finally I had selected my perfect shoe. When they arrived I eagerly put them on and felt silly for feeling so excited. The trainer was indeed comfortable, really nice but every time I looked down at my feet I was very aware of them being there and being brand new .I felt certain that everyone must know they were new as they were beginning to feel, to me, like I was wearing clown feet. They were bright and cheerful and obvious, I went back to wearing my old trainers .Then tripped again and thought how daft I was being as I had spent money on carefully selected new ones .I decided that I simply had to just bite the bullet and wear them. For the first week I was really conscious of them poking out from underneath my jeans and found myself glancing longingly at my old ones sitting in the hall cupboard every time I opened the cupboard door. I persevered and before long I had was not even aware that I had completely forgotten I was wearing new trainers. Last week I was clearing out the hall cupboard and found my old trainers. They looked really tatty, scruffy and worn. ? Why on earth did I wear these for so long I thought? Then I realised we do that a lot in life with a lot of things and sometimes even with people. We hold on to them because they are familiar and were once comfortable. Even when they start giving us problems we cling on hoping somehow that the problems will just disappear and things will go back to normal. Most of us do not like change and it takes us time to adjust and accept new things, new people. The comforting thing is that if we allow ourselves time to adjust to new circumstances, before long they become familiar to us also and eventually comfortable too. All we really need to do is accept and recognise the need to make a positive change. It doesn’t really matter whether it is a big personal change or silly and small like my trainers the principal for each is the same. Once we have recognised that something is no longer helping us or working for us and decide to start afresh all we need to do is take it a day at a time, each day reminding ourselves what it is that we now want, persevere with the new and much more quickly than you could imagine the change is familiar and no longer new. It becomes comfortable and life will be easier once again.