Self-Hypnosis, and New Year's Resolutions

We've all been there.

Every new year is an opportunity for a fresh start. We gear ourselves up for changing our bodies, our careers, our love lives. "This is going to be my year!" you say to yourself, every year. "This is the year that things will finally be different!"

Fast-forward to January 10th, and that momentum has melted away.

As a hypnotherapist who has worked with thousands of patients who desire transformation, I see this over and over. The first issue is this: the messages that get ingrained within our subconscious minds come from past experience. If you touch a hot stove, you quickly learn that touching that stove will cause pain and suffering. You might even find yourself steering clear of that stove when it isn't turned on, without realizing it, because your brain has created a new pattern that replays every time you are in that situation: "Stoves equal pain. When I am close to a stove, I experience discomfort. Therefore, my body will do everything to avoid touching the cause of that pain."

New brain patterns don't always stem from trauma. Repetition is what creates patterns. Think about a car driving through a muddy path. The first time, your wheels might get a little stuck in that mud. The second time, it is easier. Eventually, your repeated trips create ruts in the mud that actually make it difficult for your car to go in any other direction aside from the path you've been driving all this time.

Our brains work the same way.

Forming a new habit is hard at first. You force yourself to do the new thing, over and over...and eventually, you do it without thinking about it. It becomes ingrained behavior.

When you think about new year's resolutions, the very terminology has a certain undertone to it, doesn't it? Every year, you attempt to create change. Every year, you fizzle out. Now, when you try to set your newest goals for the year ahead, your brain is whispering, "This will only last a few weeks. You know that you say the same thing every year, and every year nothing comes of these resolutions."

So, you end up sinking back into that repetitive pattern of "failure," because your brain is stuck in that rut of previous repetitive experience.

Don't lose hope. There are ways to rewire your brain and create those changes you desire.

First of all, I tell all of my clients to become aware of the language they use, both with themselves and with others.

Words become thoughts. Thoughts become actions. Actions shape our reality.

If you find that you are constantly telling yourself, "Ugh, I'll NEVER lose weight," or "I can't stick to anything," guess what? Each time you repeat those words to yourself, either silently or internally, you are reinforcing that thought pattern. In effect, you are hypnotizing yourself into bad habits.

For the next week, I challenge you to pay attention, and to take note of every negative statement you find yourself repeating.

Then, reverse that statement, and start to create a new truth for yourself.

"I can never lose weight," becomes, "I am now ready to let go of that weight."

"I can't stick to anything," becomes, "I love the feeling of following through until the very end."

Repeat that reverse statement three times, each time you catch yourself in negative self-talk.

My second piece of advice for sticking to those new year's resolutions is to start wandering outside of the self-imposed calendar that we all use as a baseline for beginnings and endings.

Our perception of time is one of the greatest barriers to success in reaching our goals. Think about it: how many times have you said to yourself, "I'm going to stop eating sugar/quit smoking/start a new venture on Tuesday the 19th?"

It's rare for humans to start something new on an arbitrary day. We start on a Monday, or on the first day of the month, or the year. We all seem to have a timer inside of us that says, "Today was Monday, and I didn't do what I had planned. I guess I'll start NEXT Monday instead."

So we wait and wait, and before we know it, the little voice in our heads that resists change starts to tell us, "Well, here we go. Once again, we've failed. I guess we're not doing this after all."

My suggestion is to get comfortable with planning outside of this internal calendar. Create a plan that starts on a Tuesday. Or a Friday. Or a date that is completely random.

Once we begin to let go of the idea that we can only get motivated for change at specific times, that mindset begins to shift. We are, in essence, retraining our brains to JUST GO, and to dive into that change without hesitation based around the structures of time.