As we enter the last few days of each year many people make New Year’s resolutions around changes they intend to bring into their lives.
For most people New Year’s resolutions are simply wishful thinking packaged around a naivety that suggests that because a new year is about to begin the changes sought in these resolutions will be easy to adapt and will magically occur.
Sadly, as so many of us have learned year after year, this is not the case.
If you are truly serious about bringing change into your life the process must began with what we presently believe to be true of ourselves.
The beliefs we have built and acquired form the foundation of who we are and how we conduct ourselves and for anything to change, those beliefs must change first.
One of the reasons, I believe, that it is so difficult to bring long-term, sustainable change into our lives is because when we begin the process of change, we place all of our focus on the very behaviours we are trying to change.
We focus on not smoking, eating healthier foods, going to the gym, watching the less television, reading more, etc.
By doing this we are focusing on the wrong end of the process.
The foundation upon which all our habits are based is what we believe to be true of ourselves and if, in the long term, we wish to develop new habits – those things we do, or don’t do, repeatedly – then we need to ensure that the very foundation upon which these new behaviours rest is strong and indestructible.
How do we do this?
Somewhere, deeply embedded in our unconscious, lies a blueprint that we have created for who we are, what we do and how we conduct ourselves.
The process of changing what we believe to be true begins with editing this blueprint.
And the way to do this is to focus, in exaggerated form, on the very beliefs we wish to hold – the very things we would like to believe to be true of ourselves.
I know one way to achieve this and that is, throughout each day, to take time and tell yourself over and over and over again what it is you wish to believe to be true of yourself and to do so with passion, all the excitement and all the energy as if that were already a true fact in your life.
And each day we need also take a few moments here and there to just close our eyes, relax our bodies and daydream – fantasize – the reality of those beliefs.
For most people New Year’s resolutions are simply a method of setting themselves up today for disappointment tomorrow.
A few years ago I read the results of a study which suggested that over 98% of New Year’s resolutions are broken before midafternoon on January 1. Often, this is after weeks if not months of “preparing” for the miraculous, life-changing January 1 to appear.
If you truly are serious about bringing positive, empowering an uplifting change into your life then start today to begin convincing yourself of everything you believe to be true of that new change is true.
If you are serious about bringing change into your life then, right now, take a few moments and write out exactly what it is you would like to believe to be true of yourself – regardless of whether every word on that piece of paper appears to be a lie – and begin repeating this statement to yourself as congruently and as often as you can.
Make sure while doing so to take few moments to close your eyes, relax and truly feel how magnificent your life will be when those beliefs become real and lead to permanent change in the things you do.
We always wish each other a Happy New Year. Make your new year the best ever by simply doing what we’ve been talking about.
You will be amazed and delighted by the results.
Happy New Year.
Till we read again.
P.S. My book Life Sinks or Soars – the Choice is Yours has once again, found its way into many Christmas stockings. Please visit us at www.lifesinksorsoars.com and let me know what you think.
