Have you made New Year’s resolutions for 2011? Are you one of those people who typically gives up on your resolutions after just a few months or weeks? Would you like to increase your chances of following through on your resolutions?
Why is it so hard to create lasting changes in your behaviour? It’s because your brain is hardwired to resist change. When your brain tells you to stick with the same old habits, you need to fight back. It takes time to overwrite old neural pathways with new ones. These five tips will help you retrain your brain so you can stick with your New Year’s resolutions.
Don’t try to change everything at once. How do you eat an elephant – one chunk at a time!! Rather than making a resolution that is so big it is virtually impossible for you to achieve, choose one or two specific behaviours you want to change.
Believe you can do it. If you don’t believe in yourself who will? If you need help changing your negative thinking patterns, spot them and ask yourself is that really completely true all of the time?
Reward yourself for the small successes. When you reach a goal or are following through on your resolution, reward yourself with things that are good for you. If weight loss is one of your goals for the New Year, find rewards that don’t involve eating or drinking—a warm bath, a good book, a walk with a friend, for example.
Don’t swap one bad habit for another. Don’t stop eating biscuits but start drinking sugary drinks. Don’t quit smoking but start guzzling coffee all day long. Replace the habits you want to change with good habits.
Setbacks don’t mean failure. Change isn’t always easy but it’s always possible. So don’t beat yourself up if you have a setback. Just acknowledge that you had a setback and get back onto your programme the next day. What can you learn from your lapse about what you might need to pay more attention to? Remember failure isn’t falling down, it’s not getting back up again.
Ask for help – use others to help you achieve your goals. If you need the help of a professional, see this as an investment in you and your future.
Cognitive hypnotherapy is very effective for breaking unwanted habits of any kind. If you’d like to discuss how hypnotherapy can help you change, feel free to contact me for a confidential, no obligation chat. Change can be easier than you think…..
“There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt
