The other day, an acquaintance and I were commiserating about how crowded the gym was. In January of every year, the gym is overrun with people.  By March, it's settled down and you rarely have to wait to use the equipment you want.  It seems that around the first of the year lots of new people join, fully intending to make working out a habit.  By late winter, attendance has dropped off appreciably.

Why is it that many New Year's Resolutions get derailed almost as soon as they are made?  I can think of at least five reasons:

1.     Your goal is too big:  It's great to have a big, ambitious, thrilling goal...something that gets your heart racing when you think about achieving it.  But unless you also have smaller goals along the way, it can feel overwhelming rather than inspiring. "Publish my book" has been a goal for many years.  When I originally established that goal, I had no idea what that would entail, but I knew it was something I wanted to accomplish.  Even now, ten years after I first set the goal, the finish line is still in front of me (but it's getting closer!)  I've made progress by breaking it down into successively smaller steps, like "Write for 5 minutes."  It's always been helpful to have the big goal looming ahead but without the small steps I never would have gotten this far.

2.     It's too vague:  Have you ever made a resolution like "I will get in shape"?  What's wrong with it? Well, maybe you'll know it when you've achieved it but the goal as stated doesn't give you enough specificity.  There are a couple of disadvantages to that.   First, the HOW is unclear. Conceivably, you could get in shape through weight loss, training for a marathon, lifting weights, or many other methods.  But until you know what "in shape" means to you it won't be clear how to go about doing it.  Second, your DESIRED RESULT is vague, which makes it impossible to measure when you've achieved your goal and thus reduces motivation.

3.     It's not your goal:  For years I had a goal to attend church regularly.  At the end of each year, as I evaluated my success in achieving each of my goals, I came up short here.  Finally, I came to terms with the reality that, for me, attending church is not the most meaningful way to enrich my spiritual life.  This was a goal I took on from other people in my life.  Once you've set a goal or a resolution, ask yourself, "What will that get me?"  and then "What will that get me?" until you've identified your fundamental need or desire.  It's a useful way of truly claiming the goal as your own. 

4.     You haven't created structures to facilitate success:  This is a big one.  Willpower is insufficient for success.  You need to have structures in place to change your behavior.  What do I mean by structures?  These are supports in the external environment that make it easier for you to remember and work toward your goal, until the new practices become habitual.  Having healthy food in your refrigerator and eliminating the foods you are trying to avoid, finding a workout partner, hanging your goals up where you can read them every day, putting sayings or photos that remind you of your goals in a prominent location.  Why rely on willpower alone?

5.     Your saboteur is having a field day:  What's a saboteur? Wikipedia defines a saboteur as "one who engages in sabotage, where sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction."  Some of us have saboteurs in real life:  That colleague who is always trying to undermine your success, for example.  Most of us have saboteurs in our heads.  Sometimes known as your "inner critic" (I like "saboteur" because it's much more colorful) your saboteur can be very effective at derailing even the most serious of New Year's Resolutions.  For more about saboteurs, read on...

Do any of these statements sound familiar?

"You'll never amount to anything."

"You're not an artist/athlete/scholar/writer/leader."

"You just don't have what it takes."

"You're not good/smart/attractive/talented/successful/original enough."

Or just "You're not enough."

And my personal favorite, "Who do you think you are?"

When I introduce the notion of the saboteur during workshops, most people immediately know what I'm talking about.  There's usually a flash of recognition and then glance around to see if other people are having the same reaction.  People often say, "I thought it was just me." Even the most accomplished people live with the presence of one or more saboteurs, those voices in our heads that constantly judge and criticize.  What's the impact?  One of my clients struggles to articulate her thoughts when the saboteur is at work.  She finds that her mind goes blank, she forgets ideas she's just thought of and everything becomes very difficult.  Another client fails to speak up in meetings even when he has relevant and useful contributions to make because his saboteur whispers to him, "You sure you want to say that?" and "You should think more about that before you say anything."   Personally, I am sure that one of my saboteurs has been responsible for slowing down the publication of my book.  She has often reminded me that I have nothing original to say, so why bother.  Before I gave her a name and a distinct identity, I had no capacity to counter the messages she was sending me.  Instead, my mind would go blank and I would either come up with a suddenly urgent task that superseded my intention to write or start reading something written by someone else on the same topic.  By turning her into a person, I can now choose to engage in a debate, ask her to leave me alone or use other strategies to reduce her influence on my writing.

Here's an exercise (it may feel silly doing this alone but think of the workshop participants who share this with a whole roomful of people):  

1. Write down all the phrases you can think of that your  saboteur says to you.
2. Give your saboteur a name.
3. Draw a picture of your saboteur.

You can do these things in whatever order you like.

Once you've personified your saboteur, share it with a few people you feel comfortable with.  Ask them about their saboteurs.  Ask them how they deal with their saboteur in order to carry on with what's important.  And come up with some strategies on your own.  Try applying this to your latest New Year's Resolution to see if you can create sustainable results.

Okay, so you've gotten acquainted with your saboteur, recognized his influence and figured out ways to banish him when necessary.  Is there anything useful that your saboteur contributes?  In other words, can we be  friends with our saboteur instead of always having to fight?

Sometimes, clients will say that they never would have accomplished as much if they didn't have their saboteur to defy:  "Every time she said, 'You'll never make it' I went out and proved her wrong!"  What a great way to use your inner critic to leverage success.  But it can get exhausting to use that negative energy as your fuel for accomplishment.  I did recent run across a posting that took a slightly different approach to working with one's saboteur.  Instead of reject or defying her:

..."embrace your saboteur! H/S is only trying to "serve and protect" - even if it's being done in an "unskilled" manner...

Some thoughts:

•  Ask to hear whatever the message is, however the voice wants it to be heard. Give it freedom to express however it would like!
•  Try uncovering its "golden nugget" (the message that lies underneath that voice's harsh exterior).
• Listen for the "protective message" behind the condescending or punishing "style" through which it's being presented (Inner Critic formula: Saboteur's statement - Negative delivery style = Protective message).
• Usually, the client can access messages like "it's telling me 'heads up,'" or "it's telling me to get my ducks in a row before I take on this project," or "it's telling me (in a not-so-nice way) to make sure I'm ready, by doing due diligence before I enter into this partnership," etc." 
   

This is from Ari Moisiades, retrievable at

http://www.coactivenetwork.com/webx/?14@272.spbScYcGaQK@.59ba5739/11