News Years Resolution
Most New Year’s Resolutions fail. After a few months a person is back at their old habits and routines. One reason well intended resolutions fail is because we are already overloaded. Our mind is already full of things to think about, our daily schedule is full, and our energy spent on existing routines. With our attention, time, and energy spent, we don’t have enough resources to successfully implement anything new.
That’s way by the end of the day we just want to sit on the couch and watch TV. At that point, we lack the energy necessary to get to the gym and push our body through a work out, a night class, or other things that we seriously intended over too much champagne.
Once your new routine is implemented it can bring you more time and energy in return. However, it takes some personal power to implement the new mental, emotional, and physical habits before you get that energy back.
Some people think it just takes a serious commitment and/or discipline. However, the energy we put into the commitment and the energy to keep our selves focused has to come from somewhere.
If you are finding making changes difficult, consider that recovering your attention over your mind, some energy, and time, will be a helpful start. For long term change to be successful you will first want to prepare the ground to make room for new habits.
Less is More
Before you implement something new you must first free up some resources for it to be successful. Instead of making a New Year’s resolution that adds something to your schedule, make a resolution to detach from something. Begin to simplify your life by deleting things from your daily or weekly regiment. Once you’ve freed up some energy, start putting in place small positive changes.
Why make small changes first? A huge plan for change can overwhelm us, and set us up for failure which leads to self-judgment. To combat this pitfall, start with something small. Besides, large scale change is really just a lot of small changes added together.
Implement one simple thing. When you have integrated a small change into an easy habit that adds positive energy to your life, then make another small change. Depending on the change you are making, 4 to 6 weeks is enough time to build a new habit.
Example: Do Less for your Body
Refrain from making your resolutions about adding something such as “eat healthier.” This is an additional, “to do” item that takes energy, and adds stress to the mind. Instead, make a resolution to eliminate something or do less. I call them NON-DOINGS.
Delete soft drinks or high sugar or fructose corn syrup from your diet. If you are already drinking diet soft drinks with artificial sweeteners, delete them.
Put less of that stuff in your body. Your body will thank you. You don’t need to think about this as something to do, but rather as something you no longer have to do. Thoughts in your mind might disagree, but that thought/belief can be deleted also.
Adopt “Non Doings” as a way to change
Think of it as not spending money on unhealthy drinks. Think of it as not picking up something at the grocery store. One less thing you don’t have to carry to your car, put in your refrigerator, keep cold, or throw in the recycling. Your liver and organs have less toxic materials to purify from your body as well. One simple Non Doing leads to less in other things. Water is an easier and healthier substitute to sugar and artificial sweetener drinks anyways.
By breaking just one habit, you created a little more time in your week, more money in your pocket, and more energy in your body. As you learn the art of Non-Doing, or refrain, you find that you have more.
Compounding Change
With your added resources and personal power implement the next “Not Doing.” After that habit is an easy and natural way to live, refrain from doing something else in your life that bleeds off your energy With the personal power that you recover from these habits, it is much easier to break each additional habit. As you recover additional power each time you break an old pattern your speed at making changes in your life grows geometrically. The important thing is to start with something small and build.
Do Less with your Time
Perhaps you want to work out at the gym a couple times a week. Where are you going to get the time for the gym if you don’t eliminate something else first? What are you spending time doing that you are going to do less of? If you don’t free it up from somewhere, then you will try to do too much. Eventually you will become overwhelmed and tired. When you are tired your mind will begin to return to old habits and you’ll skip the gym workouts. Perhaps eliminate television or some internet surfing. We got rid of cable this past year.
Look at where you spend your time and attention that is least worthwhile. Commit to less. Changing this behavior doesn’t take much effort. Actually, because you are doing less of it, it takes less effort. You actually get some of your attention, energy, time back
If you add something to your schedule without eliminating something first, it will put stress on your mind. Your mind will feel overloaded and that will affect your emotional well being. It seems like you are doing more, but you feel less about it.
Of course don’t eliminate the valuable stuff like listening to the audio on my site. But you can play my podcasts on your CD player on the way to the gym or your iPod while working out, so no problem there.
Make Room in Your Mind
In order to break a habit or behavior, you will sometimes have to change the belief in your mind that drives that action, or behavior.
Part of why we waste time on things like television and internet games is that we have beliefs that support the behavior. Those beliefs fight against the conscious and reasoned thoughts of it being a waste of time. A belief is a mental construct that we accept as true, and then gets expressed as a behavior. It usually remains unconscious to us until we raise our awareness and put our attention in it. We can have thoughts and tell our self one thing, but we act and behave according to our beliefs.
As long as you have a supporting belief about a habit or behavior, it will be difficult to break that habit or behavior. You will often be able to push away the behavior for a while, but since the mental construct is still in your mind, the behavior will tend to creep back in. To make a complete and permanent change in behavior, you will have to change the belief at the root of it.
What does a belief look like?
One place beliefs hide is in justifications. A comment like, “I just need to watch TV for a bit to wind down” is a justification that hides a belief. At the same time those words are so automatic that they are a habit as well. The word “need” exaggerates the desire as if it were food, shelter, or water. This is a distortion that we accept as true when we use such strong misplaced words. From our dialog and thoughts it then appears that we have not choice. We NEED television. When you put your attention on these distortions in this way, you no longer believe your own justifications.
How many ways can you wind down and let go of your stress of the day? If you only come up with one, then you have found a limiting belief. If you come up with several, but only actually do one, you found a limiting belief. Your actions are a big indicator of your beliefs.
Limiting beliefs take up space in your mind, drain your energy with wasteful habits and defensive justifications. When you begin to do less television, internet surfing, or drinking pop, you will find these agreements poking at you. They will attempt to pull and poke you back into old habits.
Your old beliefs will propose lots of justifications for going back to your old habits. This is where awareness comes in handy. If you have awareness when these thoughts tempt you, you can avoid being hypnotized by them. Awareness is your best defense against the dark arts of sabotaging beliefs. It gives you the power to perceive the distortions, exaggerations, and lies behind those words. With that awareness it is easy to say no to temptation before you fall into an old behavior habit.
Why most Resolutions Fail over time
Most resolutions fail over time because people attempt to change the behavior, but don’t address the belief in their mind. If you don’t change these lingering beliefs eventually they are likely lull you back into old patterns and habits one day. Our beliefs are often below our conscious radar of what our mind is doing. We are not trained how to look at them or even that we should. To change these beliefs you will have to LEARN how to look at your thoughts and see the beliefs that support them. The audio program in Self Mastery will help you to do this.
Begin with Less
Begin your resolutions this year with detaching from something that is taking up your attention, time, and energy. Your emotional reactions and emotional drama can be some of the things you detach from this year. Once you have carved out some extra time and energy for your self, then consider what you want to do with it.
Before you add something healthy to your diet make room by deleting something unhealthy. Before you create new beliefs that will add to your happiness, break some old beliefs that create unhappiness. Breaking old beliefs will free up the power you need to make future commitments work out.
If you want to grow a garden you must first clear the ground of weeds. If you don’t, those weeds will take the nutrients and sunlight from whatever you plant. Clearing the space makes it possible for your new creation to grow. To make effective changes in your life begin by clearing away what doesn’t work. Then in the empty space that you create, build something beautiful, nurturing, and beneficial to your self and your relationships
May each new year of your life be happier than the last.
I wish you the happiest year of your life. At least until 2010, when it gets better.