Keeping Our New Year's Resolution in Focus...

 8 Steps to Powerful, Permanent Resolutions

In my last newsletter I shared with you some tips on how to achieve your New Year's Resolutions.  In this issue, I'd like to continue that conversation and spend some time talking about focus. I've included an article on brain plasticity and how mindfulness improves performance, to provide some background for you.

In my last newsletter I also created a short online quiz to help you become clearer about which areas of your life are thriving and which are not.  If you did this quiz you would have seen which of the 8 Life Areas are going well and which need attention.  Hopefully, that may have prompted you to reflect on how this life pattern came to be, and what you can do differently in 2011 to balance things up a bit more.
 

The next step is to write down a resolution, or look at one you've already made.  Ask yourself if this is something you feel emotionally or energetically connected to.  Does it fire you up when you think about achieving this resolution or goal?

If it doesn't fire you up, excite you or create a positive energetic response, then it is unlikely to be achieved.  Each of us needs a lot of drive to achieve new goals, and so the things that excite us, fire us up, or make us feel positive emotions get our mind-space and our energy.

So, to be blunt, we need to find a way to get excited about a goal.  One way to do this, that I have found very effective, is to attach a reward to the goal.  Over the last 20 years as a hypnotherapist, working with thousands of people who want to change an unwanted behaviour, I've found this to be one of the most effective techniques for achieving permanent change.  The reason for this is that most of our unwanted behaviours give us some form of pleasure, or at least they did when we first took them on.  So we have to find a way to feel pleasure by changing our behaviour, otherwise, sooner or later, the old pattern will re-assert itself.

If the goal is to quit smoking, for instance, then attaching a reward that uses the money saved by not buying cigarettes is very effective.  Create a reward jar for the money saved, and put pictures of the thing you will purchase with the saved money around the jar. At the end of each week, put the money you would have spent on cigarettes into the jar. So if you spend $50 a week on cigarettes, at the end of the week $50 goes into the jar.  At the end of 12 weeks you'd have $600 in the jar - enough for a nice weekend away - new clothes, a fishing rod, new car-seats, tickets to a concert etc.  The important thing is to use the reward money for something you get excited about.  Don't use the money to pay bills - that rarely excites!

I've used this technique  successfully to help countless smokers quit and stay quit, as well as people who want to reduce their alcohol intake, eat less junk food, exercise more, stop biting their finger-nails and so on.

1. Reward the goal
So the key message here is - attach a reward to your goal - make the reward personal, and make it something that brings a smile to your face every time you think about getting your reward.
Our cells respond to pleasure even more than pain - use this to your advantage.
 

2. Write it down
Next write your goal down as if it is already achieved. This is one of the most important steps in setting goals that stick. Write your goal down in the present tense, as if it is already achieved, and you are expressing your gratitude (to yourself) for sticking to it. This kind of goal is called an affirmation - it literally affirms the intent of your goal.  This gives you clarity and focuses your intent - which is essential.
 

3. Use emotive language in present tense
It needs to use emotive language that feels good to you - it needs to paint a picture in words of how you'll feel, and how life will be when the goal is achieved. And each affirmation needs to include only one goal. You can have multiple affirmations, but keep each goal specific.

Here's an example of an affirmation I wrote for a client who wanted to make better food choices and exercise in order to lose weight and stay healthy. This was a wellbeing goal.
 

"I am slim and slender, lean and fit. Every day I nourish myself with healthy food choices, pure water, and fresh air. I enjoy exercising because I love the benefits it provides to my body, and it feels so good to be fit and full of energy. I honour my body through every choice I make throughout my day, and give thanks for this amazing body I have been given. I am slim and slender, lean and fit."

Emotive language charges up your cells, which switches on DNA.

4. Say it out loud often
Next you need to say the affirmation out loud - about 10 times a day if you can manage it, and for about 30 days.  It takes about 28 days for a new habit to be locked in - so I say 30 days to be safe.
Read your affirmation with energy and passion.  Even if you feel it isn't true, or can't be true - read it as if it already is.  Your subconscious mind lives in an eternal present - so it gives priority to things that are immediate, rather than future time.  Writing your affirmation and saying it as if it is already a reality, now - will make it a priority, or command for the subconscious mind.   This is why wishing and hoping doesn't work - they both put the things you want into future time - which never comes.
Your cells and DNA are listening to you - within your DNA, somewhere, are the codes to make this goal easier - you just have to give your cells the command to open the right book in your DNA library.

5. Visualise the goal using all your senses
The next step is to visualise yourself in the new habit, achieving the goal.  Close your eyes and allow your mind to wander forward to a time when you have mastered this goal, changed the habit and reclaimed this part of your life. Imagine in detail how good that will feel, what it will look like, sound like, taste like even.  Collect pictures from magazines of people who have achieved this goal, and put them in a scrap book or poster.

Your cells and DNA will turn this day dream into a programme if you do it often enough. Eventually the new programme will replace any older, outdated behavioural programmes.
 

6. Break the goal down into steps - actions that you need to take to get from where you are to where you want to be
It's not enough to want something, we have to align our actions to our intent.  The more you do this, the quicker your goal will be achieved, and the more permanent the change.  So work out what people who have achieved this goal do - read about them, talk to them, get a coach, whatever you need to break the goal down into steps that you can approach one, by one.  Make these behaviours part of your day.  Repeat them every day for 30 days to lock them in.

When you were a toddler and learned to walk - you took one step, then another.   Over time this turned into walking, and eventually running.  All goals need to be approached the same way, so your nervous system can learn, become familiar with the steps, and eventually make them unconscious - or second nature.

7. Enjoy the reward
Once you've reached your first milestone - celebrate.  Take the reward you planned, and write a new affirmation thanking yourself for the steps you've taken to get you there.  As you enjoy the reward, keep associating the pleasure with the new behaviour - i.e not smoking, eating more healthily, exercising, saving money etc.

Remember the pleasure principle is a very powerful biological and psychological driver.

My last tip is to remember to never get cocky about old behaviours.  If you've given up smoking, don't think you can have one and it will be okay. The old behaviours don't need much encouragement to rear their ugly heads.  It's much easier to stay 'on the wagon' than to fall off and have to climb back on.  However, if you do slip and fall back into old habits - revisit the 8 steps above, and if you need to, get the assistance of a mentor, coach or hypnotherapist.

So these are my 8 Steps to Powerful Resolutions. Enjoy!