How To Stick To Your New Year’s Resolutions

Happy New Year to you! Ok, we’re a few days in but I thought this would be an appropriate time to talk about New Year’s Resolutions. Why is it that when we set New Year’s Resolutions, many give up within a few weeks? It’s a very fascinating piece of human behaviour! Over the last few years, I’ve dived deep into psychology/emotional intelligence/emotional fitness – whatever you like to call it. I’m fairly sure I’ve figured out the reason why so many people give up. Here is how to stick to your New Year’s Resolutions! 

One of the greatest gems of advice I have learned from a leading authority in human psychology, Tony Robbins, is that we humans are motivated two key driving forces; pain and pleasure. To be more specific, we are motivated by the need to avoid pain, and the desire to gain pleasure. Everything we do, every action we take and every decision we make is a result of one or both those two driving forces. Taking procrastination as an example, the reason we do that, is because we attach more pain to taking action, than we do pleasure of the outcome of completing the task. The pain of the process outweighs the pleasure of completing the task – at least, that’s what we’ve made up in our head subconsciously.

Let’s say you’re wanting to get into peak physical shape. Maybe you want to burn a few pounds of fat, or you’re experiencing an ongoing illness you know you can reverse, or maybe you want to avoid of come off medications – you know it’s possible, you’re just not doing it.  When someone procrastinates about this (not you of course 🙂 ), it’s typically because they have subconsciously (or consciously), attached more pain to the actions required to create the result – such as moving more and cutting back on inflammatory foods. It might be that you perceive physical exercise as a chore and “going on a diet” as a pain in the backside. If you tell yourself you need to go on a diet, that’s immediately introducing pain into your life. You’ll regard “giving up” foods as a sacrifice and therefore that is a pain you have just introduced into your life. Therefore, procrastination wins.

A new fitness regime might be regarded as an introduction of pain into your life, rather than it being a means to bring total joy into your life. In short, this association is created when you haven’t focused enough on the pleasure of the outcome, and really importantly – why you want to achieve it, and instead focused on the (perceived) pain of the process. This can be applied to anything of course, not just health and fitness / healing. This can be applied to business, relationships, careers, finances – everything. I have some work to do…

When you get crystal clear on your vision of the health and body transformation you wish to create, and attach so much meaning in achieving it, this is when you get results. Commitment happens. Magic happens.  It’s almost not worth starting any kind of health and fitness/wellness/healing program, unless you do this fun and inspiring exercise – even mine! (I help you reverse the root cause of just about every health challenge that exists; reverse inflammation. You’d be blown away as to how many symptoms arise from the same root cause. Details here.

I’d like to invite you to book yourself in for a free strategy session here to take your fitness to the next level by focusing on reversing the root of almost every common illness and chronic disease. This way, if you’re wanting higher testosterone levels, or want to reverse type-2 diabetes, you’ll be on the right path.

The first important thing to do is to focus on the outcome and why you want to achieve it. Without a strong enough reason or ‘why’ for achieving any outcome, then you’ll struggle to commit to the action required. If you want to get into peak physical shape, firstly be specific. I like to ask my clients to ask ‘3 levels of why’ for each reason they come up with for achieving X.

What’s also cool about getting clear on your vision and your reason for reaching it – all the pleasure it will bring to you in your life in all areas of your life, is that motivation can quickly turn into INSPIRATION. To me, motivation is more about kicking yourself to take action, whereas inspiration is as if you’re being pulled towards something – you’re driven by a greater sense of joy and purpose and really, the truest expression of you.

It’s also worth reframing your actions of ‘ do more exercise’ to something more positive like ‘being more physically active and vibrant’ and ‘going on a diet’ to ‘making friendlier-to-my-body food choices’ – because you can.

When you’re more physically active, a whole lot of awesome things happen in your body; you’re able to focus and concentrate more, you get more creative and motivated, you become smarter as physical activity stimulates neurogenesis, the creation of new brain cells. Your neuroplasticity also improves which is your ability to learn and remember. You put yourself into a better state and can think more clearly and optimistically. You reduce stress or alleviate it completely. When do you not feel better after exercise? According to Tony Shwartz who wrote The Power Of Full Engagement, aerobic exercise is the number one method for emotional renewal. These are just a few examples of the multitude of benefits of being more physically active – or ‘exercising more’. All of a sudden, being physically active is way more enticing.

By making smarter food choices, you’re able to fuel your body, your cells, your brain, your organs, your musculoskeletal system (muscles, bones, ligaments, tendons etc). You’ll nourish your skin and be able to function optimally when you’re nourishing your body with micronutrients for example, rather than eating to ‘become full’ or for a sugar high from carbs or sugar which cause mood fluctuations and stress and an inability to concentrate and focus.  By reframing these two things, you’re able to focus on the positive aspects of these changes, rather than the sacrifice (pain) of giving something up and exercising more.

Get Crystal Clear On Your ‘Why’

My suggestions to commit to your New Year’s Resolutions and your 2019 goals: Get crystal clear on why you want to achieve the outcome, use pain and pleasure to serve you. As well as attaching pleasure to the outcome, ask yourself what pain you’ll experience if you don’t change, if you don’t commit. How will your life be then? Write down as many reasons as you can for achieving the outcome and write down as many potential outcomes your life will be if you do not commit.

We tend to be more motivated by the need to avoid paid as it’s a survival mechanism within our brain, the reptilian brain. It’s designed to keep us safe, in our comfort zone, or rather, what it already knows, in our zone of familiarity. Sometimes our comfort zone, really isn’t that comfortable at all!

When you work with me, and allow me to be your guide in taking you through my award winning program called IGNITE YOUR INNER HEALER, there is a psychology module, which goes into greater depth of creating for yourself a strong enough ‘why’ to commit. It’s ultimately about creating a VISION so inspiring that you’ll do whatever it takes to bring it into fruition.

I hope this helps. Do you have any questions? I’d love to hear from you and Happy New Year!

Check out this video and see how fast you can reverse the root of so many common illnesses and just about every chronic disease – inflammation. It just requires getting clear on your ‘why’.