The Truth About Resolutions

The truth about New Year's Resolutions is that they don't really work! I know, I know, when you decide to set a New Year's Resolution, you really mean it. You are absolutely going to do it this time! You'll stop eating out so often, save more money, be nicer to your sister, give up nicotine or chocolate, or start exercising. You started the year with great resolve, and perhaps within just a few days, you are struggling, maybe even backsliding into that undesired behavior or habit.

Does it help you feel better to know that you are not alone in that struggle? Research suggests that in the short term, about 23% of people abandon their resolutions by the end of the first week in January, and roughly 43% give up entirely by the end of the month, with only about 9% estimated to keep their New Year’s resolutions for the whole year.

How come you can't keep your promise to yourself to change? It may seem like your willpower has completely evaporated. Using willpower alone is mainly why resolutions don't work. Because they are made in our conscious mind and we depend on our willpower to succeed. Willower resides in the conscious mind. The problem is that our conscious mind is not what drives our behavior and habits. Our subconscious does that.

I refer to our conscious analytical mind as "Cony", and our subconscious mind, where our emotions and imagination live, as "Suby." Like it or not, Cony is not really in charge. Suby is in charge. Cony may decide to stop snacking on chocolate after seven, but if you haven't addressed the emotional need related to why you need to snack like that, then you'll likely struggle with changing or stopping the habit. Why? Because the habit is supported by some unconscious need that the snacking is filling.

In short, and to be extremely general, consider that the undesired snacking is actually serving you in some way. Not in some way you consciously want, but perhaps in a conditioned kind of comforting way. For instance, if, as a little girl, your uncle would bring a whole box of chocolate bars on his occasional visits, and only tell you where he hid them, giving you the power of whether or not to tell your brothers where they were, you may have developed an emotional attachment to eating chocolate bars with a sense of feeling empowered. This happened so subtly and so long ago that you are completely unaware of the connection, yet today, somehow, eating a chocolate bar makes you feel safer, stronger, and happier. (True story, by the way. That was one of the only times I ever felt like I had the upper hand with my brothers.)

And to add to the struggle, Suby, the autopilot of our deep inner programming works overtime when we are anxious, stressed, tired, or emotional. In hypnotherapy training, we learned the premise of “the strongest emotion always wins.” My brief story is a good example of that premise and explains why it is so easy to slip back into that old habit or behavior. It's comfortable, even if it is bad for us and completely unwanted. It feels ”normal,” which feels safe, which is comforting. Oddly enough, as human beings, our programmed comfort zone is often created out of maladaptive or even harmful habits and behavior.

Unlike Cony, who operates in a logical state, Suby only operates on programming. Suby knows what Suby knows, and that's it. At the core, Suby is designed to keep you in the known because the unknown is unsafe. Trying to reason with Suby won't work. Once an emotion and what I call a false "I am sense of self" are activated, Suby just runs the program to bring you back into a known state even when you Cony says otherwise. Suby has permanent veto rights over Cony's decisions.

To illustrate further, let's briefly look at my experience. I was stress eating an embarrassing amount of chocolate late at night. Once I started doing the uncovering work, I realized that my stress was actually fear that I was pushing away, and that it was making me feel inadequate and incapable. The feeling state was reminiscent of how I felt quite often as a little girl until my uncle would come with his chocolate stash and empower me with its' secret location. Once I ate the chocolate, the empowered feeling would flood my nervous system, and I would feel better.

So what changed? I was able to dismantle the false sense of myself as someone who is inadequate and incapable. I was allowing myself on an emotional level to believe that these falsehoods were true. Now understand, I mean as an overall value judgment of myself. Am I inadequate in some areas of my life? Sure. I can't dance or sing well, even though I am technically capable of dancing and singing. Am I incapable in some areas of my life? Yes, absolutely. I can't bench 400 pounds! But not being a good dancer and having the ability to bench 400 pounds does not make me, my worth as a person, inadequate or incapable. Do you see the difference?

The way I see it is for resolutions to stick, to become your new known, you have to rewire your brain and change your programming. Once the new you feels safe like the old you, the change sticks and you're successful in sticking to your resolution. The great news is that our brain has this amazing ability to change and rewire itself, called neuroplasticity. We can actually create new pathways in the brain, new connections that result in new behavior.

This is what hypnotherapy does. It creates neuroplasticity and supports us in changing our inner programming. There as so many different avenues through hypnosis and hypnotherapy, which can be some of the quickest ways to make lasting change.

If you'd like to discuss how hypnotherapy can help you stick to your resolutions or make any changes in your life, please schedule a free 15-minute consultation from my booking page: https://www.cherylmitchellciht.com/booking