Certified Empowerment Life Coach

Turn Your New Year's Resolutions into Potent Mental Seeds

by Maarten Reilingh, Ph.D. — Certified Empowerment Life Coach

For some people, making New Year's Resolutions is a carefree ritual, just a way to celebrate the New Year without much concern for the resolution itself. For others, it's a big project; a thoughtfully composed list is whittled down until a resolution that really matters is chosen. Resolutions cover all sorts of issues: how to lose weight, find a new job, be nicer to children, more loving to a spouse, more courageous toward a boss, more regular in attending church. What resolutions are you thinking about?

The truth is that resolutions can work. A resolution is a kind of mental seed that can blossom and flourish if properly planted and tended. But you've got to do more than just make the resolution and forget about it. For a resolution to be successful, to actually come true for you in the New Year, it must really motivate you; it must be truly doable and worthy of your effort. To make a resolution that will be effective, use the following guidelines:

• Write it down. By writing out your resolution, you take your intangible thought and turn it into something concrete. Everything that happens in human affairs — finding jobs, losing weight, building bridges, making love, flying to the moon — begins with the thought that these things are possible. Writing out the resolution is a first baby step for your idea on its way to becoming a reality!
• State it in the positive. Make it say what you will do, not what you won't. Instead of "I won't eat junk food," make it "I choose healthy, whole food." Instead of "I won't oversleep on work days," try "I rise eagerly to get to work." When we resolve what we don't want, we are actually giving attention and energy to the negative behavior. Use your resolution to take your mind away from there; your body and your behavior will follow.
• Be succinct. The more to-the-point and articulate your resolution, the easier it will be to focus on it, to remember it, and to call upon it throughout the day when you need it. Your resolution may start out as a set of wishes around an unsatisfactory situation; whittling it down helps you get clear on what you really want. Instead of "I have the courage to stand up to my boss when she makes inaccurate statements about my performance and also I have the confidence to bring my good ideas about the job to her," try "I easily and confidently talk to Mary."
• Be specific. Make your resolution state exactly what you want. Take the time to think it through so you know what you want and will know it when it happens to you. For example, "I'll have a new outdoor job that is rewarding and challenging and pays $55,000 a year by March" sets a very specific target. Come March, you'll know if you hit it or if you have to adjust your resolution in some way. Being specific solidifies your commitment around your goals; you know exactly what you are working toward. You may worry that you don't have enough information to be specific; for example, you may not know exactly which outdoor job you'd like. The fact is, you'll never have all the details about how things will be until you get there. Be as specific as you can; you can always change or add details later.
• Make your resolution attractive. Use strong language that excites and delights you. Now you are using your own personal poetry to get fired up. Instead of "I don't get flustered when confronted by troublesome students," try "I soar through the school day, sweeping my students along with my contagious enthusiasm."
• State it as if it already exists. Your resolution will manifest in the time that you envision. Even if you don't know exactly how something will come about, it helps to use the present tense. Using "I will" or "I hope to" just puts it off. Worse yet is "I'll try to..." Don't try, do!
• Include yourself in your resolution. This might seem obvious, but it isn't always so. Wishing to get along better with your neighbors, you may resolve that "My neighbors are good people." Instead, try "I see the good in my neighbors" to make the resolution apply to you personally.
• Make the resolution about changes for yourself, not for others. You must take responsibility for your life — no one else will. Other people, even the universe, will be tomorrow as they are today. What changes is the way that you respond to all of this. Instead of, "As my spouse begins to understand me, our relationship blooms," try "I listen deeply to my spouse and speak to him from my heart."
• Make the resolution on your growing edge. Like a plant that is always growing outward, humans have a soft growth edge that is the next step that they are about to take in some aspect of their lives. A resolution can be way over that growing edge, simply impossible to achieve. If you have low self-esteem, for example, a resolution like "I love myself" may be too big a stretch for you. You may have to back up to "I am capable of loving myself." On the other hand, if the resolution does not challenge or excite you, it may be too easy for you, way under your growing edge, and not really worth your effort.

Consider each of these guidelines as you write your New Year's resolutions and you will be turning them into potent mental seeds that will blossom in the New Year. In the next article, I tell you how you can nurture those seeds and help them grow.

Maarten Reilingh, Ph.D. is a Certified Empowerment Life Coach. To comment on this article or to ask him about life coaching, find him online at empowerment.webhop.net or call 1-800-210-8567. Material in this article is adapted with permission from Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life as You Want It by David Gershon and Gail Straub.