Why Don’t New Year’s Resolutions Work?

Did you know that the top 4 resolutions are, lose weight, quit smoking, get out of debt, and spend more time with your family.

Every year millions of people start out the year with good intentions only to lapse into old habits a few hours, days or weeks later. According to Psychology Today, more than half the people making New Year’s resolutions have given up after just six months. So is there any point in trying to change?

Wanting to change yourself and better yourself is beautiful and inspirational and it appears that’s also how most other people think: 50% of most people for example set themselves a new year’s resolution. That’s pretty amazing! What’s not so great is that according to the researcher Richard Wiseman 88% of all those resolutions fail. That’s millions failed resolutions and disappointed minds each and every year.

I wanted to understand better why we are so bad at keeping our yearly resolutions and what we can do to actually make them stick.

So here is what I discovered…everyone has a list of unhelpful beliefs that they tell themselves and that is the reason why they can’t achieve their goal. For example if a woman wishes to lose weight, she might also believe that she will get fatter as she gets older just like her mother did. These types of beliefs may be subconscious. Psychologists and scientists now agree that at best we are only 15% conscious of our choices and motivations! That means that 85% of our actions and choices are made unconsciously and are based on beliefs created from past experiences and that probably don’t have any relevance today.

So without realizing it we will be drawn to activities that support these unconscious beliefs, because we were provided with fear as one of the most valuable tools in our Human Survival Toolkit. Although fear initially served the purpose of keeping us alive (the reptilian brain’s mode of survival), it has evolved and now serves some very important functions.

There is a part of your brain that exists solely for your physical survival. It’s called the “reptilian” brain because it’s been with us for about 100,000,000 years, since the era of the big reptiles – the dinosaurs. This is the first and only part of the human brain our species had for millions of years.  The main purpose of this original part of the brain was to protect the physical body from harm, thus continuing the survival of the human species. To this day, it serves the same purpose.

As humans evolved, other parts of the brain were formed, such as the limbic system which deals with emotions, and the cerebral portion which is the logical thinking and reasoning part.

The reptilian part of your brain is located at the stem of the brain, securely cushioned and protected from injury by the rest of the brain. In the event of a major injury to your brain, all the other parts of it may stop functioning, but because this part is so well protected it will probably still be ticking. This is a very clever bit of evolution; you can live without logic and reason, you can live without emotions, but you can’t live without your physical body.

The reptilian brain is command control for your survival instinct- the “fight or flight” response. During a state of fear, your physiology changes, and your blood is re-routed to that which you need for survival – muscles, heart, lungs, adrenal glands… and your reptilian brain. All conscious brain activity goes to your reptilian brain while the activity in the remainder of your brain, the thinking and feeling parts, SHUTS DOWN.

Fear will often put you on alert to protect you from something that no longer exists, never did exist, or is no longer valid in your life.  And this is the reason  why millions of people start out the year with good intentions only to lapse into old habits a few hours, days or weeks later.

The fear has the talent of shape-shifting into an endless variety of forms, such as:  procrastination, perfectionism, laziness,  self-doubt,  making other things more important (such as sharpening all the pencils), allowing others to sabotage your work,  sabotaging your own work,  easily being distracted from your path,  a sudden urge to watch TV or eat chocolate,  anger, and resentment.

Self-limiting beliefs hold us back and keep us locked inside a narrow comfort zone. We might take a few tentative steps outside our comfort zone, but we quickly pop back in at the first misstep. We may know perfectly well that it can take a long time to learn a new skill but, because we are so afraid of failing and looking bad, we fail to give ourselves enough time to succeed. We don’t make the effort to practice a new skill or take risks because it is too scary outside our comfort zone.

What are Your Self-Limiting Beliefs?

Here’s a list of typical self-limiting beliefs. Are yours on this list or do you have some different ones?
• I’m not smart enough.
• I’m too old, too young, too fat, too out of shape, etc.
• I’m not outgoing enough.
• I lack relevant experience.
• I could never do that.
• I lack sufficient formal education.
• I have too many weaknesses.
• I don’t have the confidence to do that.
• I don’t have enough skills or talent.
• I don’t have what it takes to succeed.
• I’m terrible at managing my time, money, etc.
• I don’t know what I want to do with the rest of my life.
• I would fail for sure if I tried that.
• I’m really stupid when it comes to X.
• I make too many mistakes when I try something new.
• Taking risks always turns out bad for me.
• The way I have operated in the past works well enough.
• I’m comfortable doing what I’m doing now.
• Successful people are just lucky.
• I deserve better.
• I work very hard, isn’t that enough?
• I’m a failure.
• I’m a slow learner.
• Too many people are smarter than me.
• My parents didn’t do enough for me.
• My partner isn’t supportive enough.
• Other?

Luckily, with focus and intention we can  identify the underlying sabotaging subconscious beliefs and eliminate them to allow new positive beliefs and resources to take their place.

5 Practical Steps To Achieving Your New Year’s Resolution

Step 1

Identify your self-limiting beliefs. This may not be easy because they are so much a part of you and because it feels risky to question any characteristic that helps you feel safe. Make a list of all your self-limiting beliefs and challenge each one.

Step 2

Ask yourself how each statement is limiting you and why you believe it, what evidence there is and, most importantly, why you feel you NEED to believe the statement. After all, regardless of how you acquired any particular belief, it is YOU who are maintaining it.

Step 3

Make a plan to step outside your comfort zone, recognizing that it may take practice over an extended period of time to become passably competent at your new skill.

Step 4

Take the time to learn a process that can bypass the flight and fight response and banish the limiting beliefs.   This is not easy to do without a process and that is why I founded the Focused Intention Technique( FIT 11-steps) to make this happen with grace and ease.  The FIT steps are used to identified unconscious self-limiting beliefs and then banish them, leaving you with a new perspective. It’s a powerful resource for creating the best 2015 possible.

Step 5

Work with a buddy who also wants to change a self-limiting belief. Support each other with regular updates and celebrations of success, even small progress steps. As I said before, it may not be easy because they are so much a part of you and because it feels risky to question any characteristic that helps you feel safe, so it might feel safer to work closely with a coach to be able to identify those very well hidden blocks.
Take the time this year to find out why your New Year’s resolutions don’t work and find out what is stopping you from creating the reality you want. FIT is a wonderful tool to get started and to turbo charge your New Year’s Resolutions to make 2015 the best year of your life.  Invest in doing something that will really make a difference to your day, your month, your year and your life

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Category: Being the Best Vesion of YOU