All of us experience external pressures such as persuations, preaches, reproaches, and mere requests for our transformation. I wonder if those who try to persuade, preach, reproach and/or request us to change our bad habits or negative character traits truly believe that they will be able to bring about the desired result in these manners.
My own experiences of observing other people as well as myself have convinced me that true transformation is possible only from within and not from without. But naturally, I can't change the belief of these people about the effectiveness of transformation through external pressures; they have to come to this realization by themselves.
Transformation, be it external or internal, from within may be triggered by some external factor, most notably some suffering or what is called "divine storm". But once you've realized that you can't go on like that and have to change something, your transformation continues from within though it may be accelerated by helping professions such as therapy, counseling, consulting, mentoring, and coaching.