How To Make New Years Resolutions Stick Like Warm Bubblegum

2019 is looming and I really want to become more vegetarian than carnivore. I have been talking about it for a year or two and and 1st January seems like a great reason and time to start ….. seriously. So why haven’t I just got a cookbook, or looked up those great vegetarian cooking website already? How on earth will the 1st January will be the difference to make the difference?

Why don’t New Year resolutions work, beyond January 20th? You know – I’m definitely going to the gym. I’m definitely going to lose weight. I’m definitely going to give up smoking or the booze. I going to get a new job. What is so blimmin’ difficult in starting a new behaviour, give up an old one or change something important to you?

Resolutions and other great ideas pop up all of the time. But that is all – they are just an idea that your head has come up with. They remain a thought - devoid of action.

So what is the difference that makes the difference? How can a thought become something that is worth your while and transmutes into action? The answer is to use a simple exercise that takes the regular ‘goal setting’ a little bit further.  I often use a particular process with my clients called mBraining and uses the brain in your head and the embodied cognitive centres in your body, namely the heart and the gut. But not in that order! Here it is in outline:

1.     Set the desire. Find the value: In order for something to be worth your while, it has to have value to you. It must be something that your heart really wants. What it desires. What is important to the heart in achieving this resolution? What might ‘worry’ the heart about it and block its desire? You may remember a time that the ‘heart is just not in it’ and know how difficult it is to move forward. It is like running through mud – really difficult to keep going and not much fun either. So finding the desire and clearing the worries of the heart is the first step. 

2.    Clarity leads to creativity: Then we move to your head. Once your brain realises that there is something that the heart really wants it will start noticing things and finding creative ways to support that. And the nifty little part of your brain that is involved is the Reticular Activating System – the RAS. This is a powerful area deep within your brain that will start to bring to your attention all sorts of things that support the value of the heart. Like noticing Audis if you are starting to shop for one. Suddenly everyone has one. 

I have a weird thing that I notice all the time and it started when my father died. I found a screw in my tyre. Then I found a screw on a stack of magazines in an antique shop; in the cobblestones of Temple Bar, Dublin; on the footpath at the end of the Charles Bridge in Prague; crossing a large 6 lane highway in San Francisco; hanging randomly out of a wall in a pub in Barcelona; on a dusty track on the Camino de Santiago walking out of Pamplona; in the boot of a car amongst clothing; I find screws everywhere. The first one I found somehow linked to my Dad and every one I find now seems to be worthy of picking up as if Dad sent it to me specially. 

The thing is I find them when I am not even looking. My RAS seems to be constantly on the lookout for them like a GPS, so that I am unconsciously looking for them.  And so they come to me without any effort. (Hmm, I shall try looking for €50 notes!). Having the RAS in your brain switched on to support your hearts value is well worth it. You will notice things, synchronicities and opportunities that you can then choose to take up or not. Small advertisements in the paper or overheard conversations where certain words leap out at you. The freedom of creativity is switched on and ideas flood in.

3.    Find that hunger and courage to get started: A gut level hunger to do something about that value and those ideas is next. In goal setting we literally take a step into how that feels to achieve what is wanted. To feel the new you, or to feel how it is to be doing what you want to do. And in the process of mBraining we look at the gut for that motivation – or procrastination. You know when something needs to be done, but you just seem to pfaff about and don’t get around to it. Find the gut hunger or maybe what is blocking the gut to getting you motivated – is it safe to do? Is your identity challenged in any way? Do you trust the head and the ideas it is coming up with? It is amazing as to what can block motivation and how that can be shifted. 

The process I am discussing here is how we can use our multiple intelligence centres (often called ‘brains’) to do some really cool stuff. Goals that seem to be effortless in the attainment. Goals that seem to be incredibly creative in how they are achieved. That is in flow or alignment.

This is mBraining coaching. It is fun. It discovers the blocks to progress or change. It uses your own wisdom to guiding you in removing the blocks which you usually had no idea was the issue behind the lack of heart or motivation.

And that is transformation. That is the magic.

Of course it is important to recognise the endpoint of that goal in order to discern between a new habit or a new addiction! I was coached using mBraining on the overwhelm I was experiencing in writing articles. I had so much to say, but couldn’t get started. In setting my own goal of writing articles, I had to set the endpoint that works for me, otherwise I will happily write all day which could create another overwhelm as the goal turns to an addiction - and dinner won't get made! So don’t forget to know your endpoint so you recognise it when you are there. You may pat yourself on the back and then find a new endpoint or create an entirely new goal.

The process I have written about it able to be done by yourself, with yourself. Personally I find it easier to be taken through the process with another coach however if you wish to find out more about how it all works feel free to contact me.