New Year's Resolutions
5 Tips to help you achieve your health-related goals and more
Most people make New Year's resolutions they have neither the intention nor the strength of will to keep. Here are five tips to help yours be successful.
Year after year, New Year’s resolutions are one of the first things to fall by the wayside after the flush of fresh optimism at the beginning of the new calendar year has faded. The following five tips can help you stay on track with your health and other goals – and make this year a winner!
1. Word your resolutions constructively. The words you choose to describe your New Year’s resolutions can have an impact on whether you will succeed or fail. If you choose positive words that empower you and that describe what you want clearly, you set yourself on a path to success (though whether or not you follow that path is still up to you!). If you word your resolutions negatively, you set yourself up for failure.
For instance, “I have control over my life and I am happy with myself” is a more helpful affirmation for most people than “I’m going to get over my depression.” Using present tense rather than future tense in the words you choose will empower your New Year’s resolutions, by persuading the subconscious that what you want is happening now, rather than in some amorphous future – creating more noticeable results more quickly. For more information on affirmations and the impact that our thoughts and words can have on our lives, see the earlier article on The Secret and comments in the article about Healing with Sound.
2. Don’t make a resolution you’re not going to keep. Think of every resolution as a promise to yourself and do your best keep your word. Making a promise to yourself that you know you’re going to break is discouraging and, ultimately, self-defeating.
Sometimes you can make a seemingly impossible resolution more palatable by reframing it: Instead of setting a goal to “lose 15 pounds before next Christmas,” why not make a promise to yourself to “consciously choose to prepare a healthier meal twice a week?” Or to walk in the park at least once a week now and twice a week once the weather gets nicer?
This kind of resolution seems smaller and is more attainable. It is also more focused – an effective way to break down and accomplish the goal you wanted to set (“lose 15 pounds”) – but would not have followed through on were you aiming for that final goal and not the seemingly smaller attainable goals along the way.
3. If a New Year’s resolution involves eliminating a bad habit, come up with an alternative in advance to replace it. A smoker who is determined to quit might decide to replace the nicotine habit with chewing gum, or with an essential oil like cinnamon, which may help to break the physical craving. Someone who tenses up their back or neck muscles might get a stress ball to squeeze instead of internalizing emotional stress.
If you’re planning to stop eating refined sugar, do your research first and consider which alternative sweeteners you might use to replace it when you cook. Figure out which health food stores stock goodies and prepared foods that use safer sweeteners (honey, agave, maple syrup, or others) to replace white sugar and other toxic sweeteners.
4. Confide in a friend. It’s a cliché but true: if you tell a friend about your New Year’s resolution, you multiply your odds of keeping it. Friends can act as a reality check and a cheering committee in one, helping you to stay on track by reminding you of your goal and asking supportively about your progress – and you can do the same for them.
If you are cringing at the thought of telling anyone about your goal, ask yourself: Am I expecting to fail? Am I avoiding talking about this goal because I don’t want to be embarrassed when I fail? If this is the reason for your silence, consider telling someone who will keep you on track and support you in achieving your goal, or set yourself a more reasonable resolution that you do believe you can follow.
Another question to ask yourself might be, Am I reluctant to talk about my goal with because my friends will belittle my aim and try to discourage me? If your answer to the latter is yes, please join us in posting your New Year’s resolution in the discussion board for friendly cheering and support! The simple choice to write a resolution down, type it, or speak it out loud can empower your thought to become action.
5. Get professional help. If you’ve got a change that you’re determined to make but you might have bitten off more than you can chew, please consider consulting your doctor, psychotherapist, naturopath, nutritionist, or another health care professional for assistance. The best healing and medical practitioners make it their mandate to help you with your physical and emotional health goals. They may have information or access to resources that could make achieving your resolutions simpler and easier.
Seeking out a therapist who uses EFT, EDxTM or another form of “energy psychology” can be a big help in achieving New Year’s resolutions and other goals. Energy psychology can break through fears, self-imposed obstacles, and emotional attachment and resistance remarkably quickly and easily (often in only one or two sessions), enabling you to move on with your success.
Watch this space for more information on energy psychology, coming soon!
Update: The Energy Psychology guest article is posted and can be read here.
