New Years Resolutions Gone Bad
I have often been asked why I don’t believe in New Years Resolutions…
After telling someone I think resolutions are bogus, I’ll witness the clocks spinning in their head as their thinking, “Huh? But Why? Why wouldn’t you want to set goals every year?”
Allow me to explain through a short, but very powerful story…
Once upon a time there was a man who, on January 1st, decided to go to a gym he regularly attends.
This gym usually had very few people there…but this time, there was a legion of people!
Shocked by the enormous crowd, he asked one of the employees, “Hey, what’s with all the commotion? What’s going on?”
“Oh them?” the employee responded, “Don’t you worry about them! Those are our New Years Resolutioners! They’ll be gone in a matter of weeks.”
If you’re like most people, you can relate to this experience. Year after year you’ve gotten to the end of December and said to yourself…
“Okay, this is it! I’m doing it for real this time!! This year I’m going to accomplish ________!! I’m going to start __________ and do it X days a week!!”
…Only to find weeks later you’re no longer pursuing those resolutions.
…and months later you can’t even remember what your original resolutions were.
What are Resolutions?
To understand why New Years Resolutions tend to fail, we must understand what they really are. Now, this definition won’t fit ALL people. For those that tend to succeed with their resolutions, this definitely won’t fit. The definition I am giving it however has to do with the most traditional outcome from the use of the word:
“New Years Resolutions are conscious intentions to achieve specific goals that have to do with changing a habit, obtaining a new habit, or obtaining something new in your life.”
Often times these feats people attempt to accomplish have to do with losing weight, eating healthier, cutting out a bad habit, obtaining an item that you believe will give you some sort of fulfillment, etc.
Remember the Conscious vs. Sub Conscious Mind
Do you remember what I said about the conscious and subconscious mind in my article, ‘Why is Life So Great?’? :
“The subconscious mind controls 96-98% of perception and behavior. That means that only 2-4% of your entire being is activated and maintained by conscious thought.”
Taking this into consideration, does it make much sense to pursue our goals through conscious effort alone?
If there’s such a HUGE difference between the conscious and the subconscious, why are we not using our subconscious mind more to achieve our goals rather than the conscious?
You see, the conscious effort you use each year is straight up will power. Will power is nothing more than the nitrous in a race-car: it’ll give you a killer boost and launch you ahead, but unless you’re properly fueled, you’re not gonna keep going.
And, if you’re fueled with bad fuel, it’s really gonna screw you over…you may even hurt yourself.
Using our sub-conscious to achieve our goals
So how do we use our subconscious to achieve our goals? Well, the focus of this series of posts is New Years Promises; not the retraining and proper use of your subconscious mind. I will say this however: Do everything you can to retrain your subconscious.
You can do this through the ‘creative bombardment’ of the subconscious mind: affirmations, visualization, meditation, vision boards, mind movies, etc. There are a TON of ways to do it, and what it really comes down to is not one perfect method that is THE method…but the method that works for and resonates best with you.
For now, sit and consider these ideas of conscious vs subconscious effort, and how new years ‘resolutions,’ may not be the way to go. Respond in the comments by letting me know how you intend to creatively bombard your subconscious mind, and then…
Tomorrow, I’ll share with you what I believe is a better method then resolutions: creating New Years Promises.
Until then…
–Sean Patrick Simpson
**The Mindset Apprentice**
Tags: Goal Achieving, Goal Setting, Goals, Intentions, New Years Resolutions, Promises
Great post Sean! (and perfect timing too!)
I completely agree with you, New Years Resolutions simply don’t work.
I’ve seen A LOT of new people here at the gym I go to since 2010 kicked off. It’s good, but even now….2 weeks in people have slowed down.
It’s all about creating the mindset with the habitual ways of thinking and behaving that will create the results we want.
Excellent post, by the way, have you been hitting the gym again?
Cheers,
Ryan Yokome
haha. Thanks for the comment yet.
The gym: I will be hitting the exercise in full by the end of this month!
–Sean