Fundamentally, it needs to understood that you are rewiring your brain to incorporate a new faculty: reality testing.

This might seem crazy, at first, to comprehend how to do this. But when you begin to relate to your non-lucid dream experiences, then you'll be able to understand exactly why you are doing reality checks: in your dreams, you're completely oblivious to reality.

So, when you do reality checks, it can't be stressed enough the need that one recognises, "I am here, I am aware. I do know that I am not in a dream, oblivious to my reality." (There's no need to actually vocalise this, it's just a state of comprehension more than anything else)