What if your New Year’s resolutions are setting you up for failure?
Many people live under stress and pressure during the year, and then when the New Year rolls around, they vow to do things differently in the coming year. With the time and space to think, and a spark of inspiration, the next logical step is to set New Year resolutions. But is this the best way to go about changing? We only need to look at the failure rate of New Year’s resolutions to know that most people go about them in the wrong way. They set themselves up for failure.
Studies show that around 90% of New Year’s resolutions fail.
You might find that a bit of a downer if you’ve just become pumped about your New Year resolutions. But take heart, this article will show you the key to making sure that your resolutions are amongst the 10% of winners, and that most importantly, you enjoy the trip along the way.
Many articles discuss the various reasons for the high failure rate, but the main problem is that most resolutions are created using a flawed belief.
The fundamental flawed belief is that, that we need to rely on willpower to make things happen, and that there will usually be a struggle involved.
As Alex Loyd refers to willpower in his book “Beyond Willpower”, “You might be able to push that rock uphill for a while, but usually it rolls back down and crushes you.” The problem is that willpower is a finite resource, and relying on it creates stress. As we know, stress is the number one cause of nearly all our problems, and it almost always sets us up for failure.
Here’s the solution…
How to create fail-safe New Year’s Resolutions
1. Go towards, not away:
Make sure that you are aiming towards something, not trying to get away from something. It may just be a matter of wording but this is critical. For example, aiming towards feeling slim and fit at 60kg as opposed to saying you want to lose 10kg or not be fat anymore are tow very different messages. Another common example is trying to get away from debt rather than aiming towards wealth or freedom. So if you have a resolution or goal that is an “away from”, simply get clear on its opposite, what you’d like to experience instead.
2. Work out your ‘why’:
Ask yourself what difference it will make in my life by succeeding with this resolution? In actual practical terms, what will be different? Write those things down.
3. Find the feeling:
Identify the underlying feeling that you are aiming for. Simply allow yourself to imagine how it feels to have achieved your desired outcome, and to be experiencing those positive changes that you are aiming for. Don’t just think about it, feel it as sensation in your body.
4. Be it to see it:
Commit to taking each step along the way present awareness, and deliberately cultivating that desired feeling that you just identified. For example, if you are wanting to lose weight so that you can feel light and inspired about life, you need to be doing it in the energy and feeling of lightness and inspiration, not heaviness, dread and punishment. This will ensure that you are in the right energy, and not resorting to willpower alone to force you along the path.
This may require you to change your mind set or your underlying programming, as well as the way you go about things. You may even need to change your resolution.
5. Remain flexible:
This means staying open to other possibilities. Instead of being absolutely fixed on your exact outcome, and how you intend to achieve it, open your mind to considering that there may be other outcomes better suited to you, or other ways of getting there. When we open to the unknown, we open to miraculous outcomes that our minds could never come up with.
Learn more about moving away from the struggle of willpower and into living with ease… with or without New Year’s resolutions. Apply for your free clarity call here.
