When was the last time you successfully achieved your New Year's resolutions? The idea of reinventing or improving yourself at the beginning of a new year is a very popular one, however studies show that only 8% of people who make New Year's resolutions actually achieve them. We spoke to Anna Yates, a Dubai-based Psychotherapist, Clinical Hypnotherapist and NLP Master Practitioner Life Coach, to discover the secrets to success.
According to Anna, the reason we fail so miserably at achieving our goals is because we are relying on our conscious mind. We try to stick to these resolutions using will power, using words such as ‘hope’, ‘try’, ‘should’ and ‘can’. Our conscious mind is just 12% of the total capacity available to us. Our subconscious, the other 88%, is what we should be using to give ourselves a better chance of success. How do we do that? Through visualisation, affirmations and by being positive and optimistic - telling ourselves that we will succeed, no matter what. Below are Anna's tips for creating achievable resolutions and sticking to them.
- Before starting make sure your goals are SMART:
Specific (You want a new job – what job, where, what salary)
Measurable (You want to lose weight - how much weight? 1 kg or 25 kgs)
Attainable (Don’t aim for the impossible!)
Reasonable (Make it a goal that does not negatively impact anyone else)
Timed (You want to be a millionaire – this year, next year, in 10 years)
- Visualise yourself in a month’s time or 6 month’s time when you have stuck to your resolution and achieved your goal – how are you going to look and feel? Happy, proud, healthy, energetic, confident – who doesn’t want that?
- Write down positive affirmations on post it notes or in your diary and put them in places where you can constantly see them. Read them out and repeat them to yourself over and over – at traffic lights, when waiting for the kettle to boil etc.
- Make a vision board full of pictures and positive messages about the future you want for yourself.
- Write down your goals in the form of an agreement, sign it and put it in a place where you can see it every day.
- Remove negative thoughts and words from your mind.
- If you are having doubts/negative thoughts ask your self why, what is that thought doing to you and what would be a better thought and then repeat it over and over.
- For each day that you stick to your goal, eg go to the gym, write a number on the calendar, starting at 1. Each subsequent day, cross out the previous number and increase to the next. Aim for 30, but if you miss a day you have to go back to 0. When you get to 30, give yourself a reward.
- Take each day at a time.
- When you wake in the morning, before jumping out of bed, visualise your day ahead, successfully sticking to your resolution. Work out your plan of action and how you are going to avoid any temptations/saboteurs.
- At the end of the day, go over the day and congratulate yourself on how well you have done.
- Get a buddy to encourage and motivate you and keep you on track.
- Make yourself accountable – what do you have to do as a penalty if you don’t stick to your resolution each day?
