Reaching Your Goals: Why New Year’s Resolutions Fall By The Wayside

Posted on December 23, 2008 
Filed Under Effective Thinking, Success

New Year’s resolutions are more of a joke these days than anything else. They’re certainly the cause for many jokes, as well as being the cause for much consternation and frustration. Setting goals and then forgetting about them, giving up on them, or falling short of them seems to be much more common than making a resolution and then sticking with it. But why is reaching a goal so difficult? Why do so many people drop their New Year’s resolutions almost as quickly as they make them? The reason has much less to do with the goals themselves as it does with the way you spend your time, the way your mind works – and the way you are using it.

These days, people simply have too many distractions – and too many things they think they “have to get done.” This, of course, isn’t reality; this is simply the way we’ve been conditioned to think. The truth is that we can all do whatever we want. But, there is only so much time in a day; and people only have so much energy available to them. The more things you divide yourself between, the less energy you will have to do the things you want to do; and the more time you spend doing things you don’t want to do, or things you think you have to do, the more you’ll feel like you “just don’t have the time” to do whatever it is you resolved to do. That’s simple math, not neuroscience. But that’s just the beginning of our problems with setting and reaching our goals.

Most people simply don’t understand that they do the things they do because they’ve been programmed to do them. They’ve either programmed themselves, or been programmed by others, to believe that one thing is more important than another; and their priorities – the way they distribute their time and energy – are determined by these beliefs, or programs. If there’s more to do than there is time to do it, your mind simply stores the undone tasks away where they don’t disappear, they simply run at an unconscious level where they create stress and anxiety – subtle signals reminding you that you have a growing list of “incomplete tasks” piling up in your mind. Until you complete those goals you’ve already set, or learn to clear your mind – letting-go of, or sweeping away those undone items on your “to-do list” – then a part of you will constantly feel “incomplete.”

If you’ve let New Year’s resolutions fall by the wayside in the past, you have already established a storage bin – and a direct neurological pathway to it – for future resolutions to follow. If you set New Year’s resolutions this year, they are even more likely to follow the already established path to the same place your old resolutions ended up; and they’ll probably get there even quicker this time because the pathway is already well-worn. Many people address this problem by lowering their standards and expectations for themselves – setting smaller and smaller resolutions in hopes that they may be up to a lesser challenge. That may have worked initially; but each unmet resolution simply adds to the energy drain – and to the pile of excuses we can use to not take the necessary action needed to meet our goals. Each time we do this, we become more and more accustomed to, and conditioned for, failure; and forgetting our promises to ourselves becomes easier and easier to do. We become experts at self-betrayal and self-sabotage.

To make a New Year’s resolution that you can live with, take steps to release the past and clear the memory banks of all your unmet goals. Some people take-up practices such as yoga and meditation to help them clear their minds; but if you are looking for an even quicker solution, try techniques such as EFT, Z-Point, TAT, or Psychological Kinesiology, to essentially “empty your recycle bin” and start fresh. These techniques are easy-to-learn and even easier to use; and they are safe, cost-free alternatives to the drugs and counseling many people resort to as a result of their stress or feelings of failure and inadequacy. Clear the tapes with one of these simple techniques; and then search your soul for the one thing you most want for yourself in the coming year. Then, resolve to do that thing and resolve to stick with it. Write your goal down and keep it in a conspicuous place so you can see it every day. Affirm your resolution – and your success – daily. Don’t fight with yourself; choosing something you truly want will make it much easier to do each day. When you’ve cleared your mind of the clutter that’s been keeping you busy instead of productive, and when you’ve set your sights on something you truly desire, making and keeping your New Year’s resolutions becomes an easy and rewarding thing to do – and you don’t even have to wait for a New Year to do it.

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