If you were a creature of reason, then changing only your rational mind would change your life.  You could solve all your problems by going to school and taking a course in logic.  Every problem would have a logical answer.  Drug and alcohol addiction would disappear, because it doesn't make sense to destroy yourself with chemicals.  All forms of illogical and self-destructive behavior would vanish when exposed to the power of reason.  Counseling would be easy, success would be guaranteed, and the answers to all of life's problems would be found in logic.

Insight points you in the right direction but doesn't give you the power to make the trip.

When I studied psychiatry in medical school, I learned that giving insight to emotionally disturbed patients often didn't solve their problems.  Sometimes there was marginal improvement in their symptoms, but cure was rare.  Counseling sessions were a never ending search for critical insights that hopefully would result in improvement.

The quest for a critical insight was a difficult trap from which to escape.  Your mind tells you if you can just get the insight you need, you can turn your life around.  Unfortunately, this was rarely the case.  Even when I discovered the critical insight, it rarely transformed my patient's life.  Insight may have pointed the patient in the right direction, but it didn't give him the power to make the trip.

Excerpt from :

Zero Tolerance To Negative Thinking : Good-by Depression - Hello Positive Mind

David J Abbott M.D.