You may have had this feeling, you're approaching the end of the year and you start to think, "Right, what's going to be different for me next year?" Or your friends and family start that age-old conversation, "What's your New Year's Resolution this year?" You start to give some thought to those niggling things that annoy you, just on the edge of your mind:
* I should do more exercise
* I wish I was a size .......
* I'd like to leave my job and start my own business
* I'd like to have more time to spend with .......
* I need to give up smoking
.....and so the list can go on. We have so much hope and motivation when those sparks of what 'might be' begin to illuminate our minds, but all too often they fizzle out before they've even taken hold. So what happens in those first few days, weeks or months of a new year to result in all those well-meant resolutions ending up in a dusty, spider web filled cupboard in the corner of our memories, never to see the light of day again.......well, until next New Year? Even those of us who might be super motivated and productive in other areas of our lives can find those year-end resolutions slipping away without even a nod or passing glance?
Psychologically speaking there are actually quite a few reasons why this might be, and by understanding a few of the top causes can help you approach the exercise differently in the future and provide you with more opportunity for success to achieve those things that really are important to your life.
1) Your brain is literally against you!
Your Primitive Mind hates change - Our Primitive Mind, home to the amygdala, hypothalamus and hippocampus (all in charge of vital, yet primitive functions of our mind and body), has one main and very fundamental function and that is to ensure, wherever possible, to keep you alive. This area of your brain has no intellect, it is very black and white in its operation. It is extremely wary of any change, even change that may actually be beneficial to you (such as giving up smoking). This is because it simply sees that facts as, "I did xyz yesterday and I am alive today. If I don't do xyz, potentially I may not be alive tomorrow. I will keep doing xyz". So you can see that if your 'xyz' is maybe over-eating, smoking, not exercising, working at a specific job, etc. no matter how much you might dislike these things or they may be causing you mental or physical harm, your primitive brain will continually try to advise you that change is bad and to just keep doing what you're doing.
2) Misguided Focus
Quite often the things we 'blame' for our dissatisfaction or unhappiness are not the true cause of the issue and so we might choose resolutions whilst focussed in the wrong direction - trying to fix the symptom, rather than the cause. What does this really mean? Well, one of the top 10 New Year's Resolutions in Western Society is to loose weight. So we set up all these wonderful strategies of exercising more, eating better, joining slimming groups, buying special pills and potions, etc and we start to lose some weight. Great! We feel good, we look good.........but it just doesn't last. Our motivation ebbs, our confidence slides and before we know it we're back to our old habits or, sometimes, finding ourselves eating even more than before to compensate for time we spent starving ourselves and the pounds quickly creep back on. It's all because we've focused on the symptom, the excess weight, rather than the cause, why are we over eating or being pulled to eat the wrong things? What is not being met in us that food and/or a sedentary life is filling for some reason?
3) Lost Connection To Your Inner Confidence
Confidence is literally the corner stone of all success and achievement across every platform of our lives. Confidence in ourselves, in our own abilities, strengths and potential. Confidence is actually always there, inside ourselves. Just waiting to be tapped into. But all too often we can get distracted or sometimes
even desperate to 'fix' things and we start frantically grabbing at external factors. Thinking that if we just change that, just fix this, just shrink the other, that our confidence will miraculously return or grow. In effect we believe that the key to our confidence is outside ourselves, when, in truth, it's right there, inside. We have just forgotten how to access it.
4) Loss vs. Gain
Another major factor to our success, or otherwise, is your perspective at the outset. Do you see the resolution as an attempt to gain something or lose something? For example, if your weight is the focus of your NY resolution is the overriding thought, "I need to lose weight", or "I would like to gain self confidence". If your resolution is around changing a 'bad' habit is the overriding thought, "I need to lose xyz habit", or
"I want to gain this new freedom from it". More often than not resolutions can unwittingly be focused on the negative. Loss never feels like something to look forward to, something to inspire motivation and can even be strongly linked to feelings of disappointment, fear and grief. Think about how you're phrasing your resolutions and nudge your perspective towards the positive gain. This in itself can be a great habit to gain as it allows us to spend more time in our left prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain associated with positivity, healthy thoughts and behaviours. Just like any other muscle of the body, the more you exercise the left prefrontal cortex, the stronger it becomes.
I hope you have enjoyed this article and wish you every success with your goals, whether
it be a New Year Resolution or not. To find out more about the services offered at Kim Sweetland Hypnotherapy please visit the Our Services page and to get in contact for a chat or free initial consultation please feel free to use the Contact Us button when you're ready.
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Happiest of New Years,
Kim
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