Although the numbers vary, a very large percentage of people never keep their resolutions to the end of January! How is that for setting yourself up for failure? I don’t like the phrase “keep your resolutions”. That sounds like a “do or die” type mentality instead of the way life works. We are all human and a resolution should not include things like “I will NEVER…..” or “I will ALWAYS…..”. If you’ve been a part of our site for very long, you know that we do not like these types of generalities anyway. It’s like “shoulds” – they don’t belong in our language because they are not realistic.

Here’s an excerpt from the FranklinCovey article (which was about 2009 and 2010 Resolutions but in all probability has not changed since the psychology is the same no matter what the year).

“The New Year’s Resolutions Survey found that respondents’ top three New Year’s resolutions for 2010 were similar to those in 2009: (1) improve financial situation, (2) lose weight, and (3) develop a healthy habit like exercise or healthy eating. The top 10 New Year’s resolutions for 2010 were ranked as follows, as compared with last year:

Despite these well-intended New Year’s resolutions, the FranklinCovey Products survey found that a “lack of commitment” was cited by 30 percent of respondents as the primary reason their resolution won’t be reached. “Having too many other things to do” was cited by 22 percent of respondents followed by “forgetfulness” at 18 percent.”

Their 2008-2009 Survey found that 35 percent of respondents break their New Year’s resolutions by the end of January and only 23 percent of those surveyed don’t ever break them. Nearly 40 percent of those surveyed attribute breaking their resolutions to having too many other things to do, while 33 percent say they are not committed to the resolutions they set.

I don’t want you to be in this high percentage of people who do not achieve their goals. Remember that achieving your goals (or successes/achievements/accomplishments or whatever great word you choose for them) has NOTHING to do with the time of year. So, if you find that you’re not committed to an item or that you “don’t have enough time”,  go back to step one and perform an inventory and then look to see if the successes you’ve picked are really YOURS. If not, start over. If they are YOURS, then work on identifying what’s holding you back (and what’s been holding your back). Doing this preparatory work will really help you stick to what you want to accomplish.

Don’t be a number! Be the success I know you can be.

If you want some additional help, consider picking up your copy of “Goal Setting For You“. But if you follow the steps I outlined for you last week, you should be fine!

Terrie

So what happens now?  I realize we’ve covered a very large amount of information in just 5 days and I really don’t expect you to do a thorough job in those 5-6 days but I wanted to provide you the basis for determining your goals no matter where you are in the process. You really have to start at the beginning and not skip a step. If you do, you’re liable to end up with:

1) “Goals” that really aren’t your own but perhaps those of others in your past or even present (parents, teachers, spouse, friends, boss, etc)

2) “Failure” – meaning you didn’t achieve the goal you wrote down. The reasons that might have been the result are:

• You weren’t specific about the actual result. I know that’s happened to me when I try to manifest a car. I can’t make up my mind as to the one I really want so my mind (and as a result, the Universe) bounces back and forth and can’t produce anything because I can’t settle on something and focus my energy and attention on it.
• You  “outlined” -  you told the Universe how to bring you what you wanted. Example – you said you wanted to have $20,000 so you could buy a new car. What you really want is a new car but you told the Universe that you had to get that car by buying it yourself. That sets up a whole new set of conditions that the Universe has to work with. It has to figure out how to get you that $20,000 even though you haven’t really set an increase in income as a goal. And it’s possible that if the Universe did start increasing your income gradually, you’d end up using it for something else and not even realize that this was for the car.  When you simply state that you want such and such a car (and are specific about it), that’s all the Universe has to do – find some way to get you that car. Perhaps you’ll get it as a gift, perhaps someone will want you to use it while they are stationed overseas, perhaps you’ll get it as an inheritance, perhaps there will be a deal on leasing that you never considered but now can’t pass up. There are a myriad of ways the Universe can bring you what you ask for if you let it. Don’t interfere.
• Your goals were not believable (or attainable). Remember that your subconscious mind has to embrace what you’re asking for in order to communicate it to the Universe. So, use percentages and frequently increase your goals. Don’t go for the big one right away. Example – I want to run another marathon. But I can’t just go out tomorrow and do that. It’s been 11 years since I ran one so I have to build back up. I have to make goals that are small and believable along the way. But because I am focused and can achieve most of the early goals fairly easily, I simply revisit where I am with  each goal and then change it appropriately – or perhaps I have to leave it where it is until I improve more. Remember, this isn’t just ONE set of goals for an entire year. You’re going to revisit them frequently. So start with what you think your subconscious mind will embrace.
• You did not recognize and then clear your limiting beliefs.  This is the most likely thing holding you back. It’s hard to identify those beliefs that have been so ingrained in you by so many people and for so long. They are a part of you. To first identify them is like asking you to strip pieces of your body off when everything is so integrated. It’s all part of you. These beliefs are the same. They are a part of you. They are what you have operated by all these years. They just come naturally so to speak. How do you separate them out when they have been a part of your being for so long. I’ve given you the “but” method which I think will work fine for you. But then once you’ve identified them, I’m asking you to rid yourself of them. That’s like shedding your clothes and leaving you naked. How can I possibly be asking you to do that? Well, if you’re happy with your results up to this point in your life, then you don’t have to do this. But I don’t think you’d be coming up with some of these goals if you were completely happy. Why don’t you have them already? Could it be because of these belief systems you have? If so, ask yourself whether you want to continue to believe those things and stay in the quagmire you’re in right now. If you aren’t satisfied and want a better life, then you need to get rid of those beliefs. But don’t despair. You won’t be left empty – you’ll be replacing them with belief systems that you choose and want to accept.
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“Finally” is what you’re probably saying. I bet you’re wondering why it took me so long to get to the affirmations. After all, that’s all you need right? NO! You have to do the other steps so that you can get to the most effective affirmations and have your subconscious mind believe them).

This is actually the simplest part of the entire process. You start with basics and then refine things as you go along.

An affirmation is essentially the opposite of a denial. Basically you are saying:

• “I am _____”, or
• “I have _____”

There are a few things that you have to watch for though:

• It must be in the present tense.  “I love my red Honda Insight sports car”.
• Do not say “I try to achieve great results”. That’s the same as being in the future and you’ll spend your life “trying”. Same thing applies to “I can” – that’s a future idea too. Say “I am grateful that I run the 2012 NYC Marathon in my best time ever”. Even though the marathon is 11 months  away, my subconscious mind doesn’t know that and it’s accepted the fact that my time is better than I’ve ever done. So that’s what it’s embraced and is taking me toward.
• It has to be positive and definite. “My life is phenomenal, I have the easiest, most enjoyable and most profitable job – a job where I can stay in one place without traveling, where I work with the most wonderful, happy, productive, efficient and amicable people” etc. Careful of writing “I work with people who are just like a family” – think about what your subconscious mind might think about family – you may not want that.
• You have to watch what you’re saying – the best way to do that is to read what you wrote aloud. For example, you really don’t want to say “my affairs are in order” unless you’re interested in having a lot of affairs. You also don’t want to say “My life is in harmony” – when you read that out loud, your subconscious mind hears “inharmony” which is the opposite of harmony. This is why you want to read the affirmations aloud – to catch these things that look ok but sound exactly opposite what you want.

Start by writing out the basic desire. Make sure it doesn’t have any traps that I mentioned above.

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You’ve done the basic work and now it’s time to “clear the land” so to speak.

You have been influenced by many sources over the years. Beliefs were embedded in you from the time you were in the womb and once you appeared in the world, the bombardment didn’t stop there. So, it’s no wonder you have a ton of limiting beliefs. Hopefully you uncovered a bunch of them yesterday and can now start to eliminate them.

Why do you have to go through this part of the process – doing denials? Why can’t you just proceed to doing affirmations and get on with it?

Well, if you just start doing affirmations without laying a new foundation, you’ll be trying to build a 2012 house on a 1950 (or older) foundation. Do you really want to do that?  If you start doing affirmations without doing denials first, you may end up with what’s called “chemicalization” – that’s a great deal of chaos in your life. The affirmations and your limiting beliefs mix like unfriendly chemicals and create smoke and fire and all sorts of unwanted stuff. That’s what’s likely to happen in your life too.

So, don’t try to cut corners. These limiting beliefs that you identified have to be removed or their effect will continue to be in there and will prevent you from achieving what you want and deserve.

Even if you start creating affirmations early on (like after tomorrow’s post) you should NOT do them for at least a week. Use the first week of the New Year as your denials week. Ideally you should do denials every month – start off the month with them. See what has popped up since the last time you did them. Remember that these limiting beliefs have been there for many many years and they won’t necessarily go away in one session.

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By now you’ve come up with 5-15 specific items you want to work on. Now answer these questions:

• Are they specific? They should be since that’s a great portion of what we spent yesterday on.
• Are they attainable? For example, this would not really be an attainable goal: You’re 60 years old and you can’t swim but your goal is to swim the English Channel. Of course you could learn to swim and perhaps eventually make it to that goal. But, in reality, it’s not really attainable enough that your subconscious mind will embrace it. This is very closely tied with the next one…..
• Are they believable? We always have problems with people who are currently making, let’s say, $20,000 a year and their goal is to make 1 million dollars a year. Why is this a problem if you really embrace the  Law of Attraction? Because you have to go back to the basics – what you create is based on your thoughts and the thoughts embedded in your subconscious mind which is very literal. So, your subconscious mind simply may not be able to make that jump from $20,000 a year to a million! You’ll see in the later part of today’s exercise where the problem might be. So, what’s the issue? Are you doomed to making $20,000 a year forever? No, but you need to “encourage” your subconscious mind and nurture it. The way to deal with this is to use percents of increase. You can say “my goal is to increase my income by x% per xyz”. “x% is the amount you want to increase it and xyz is the time period. For example “I increase my income by 10% per month over the next 6 months” – that equates to an increase of $166 per month over the next 6 months. Your subconscious mind can accept that and consider it attainable. When that happens and you’ve “exercised” your subconscious mind, then you increase it some more. One of the biggest mistakes people make is to “go too big” right out of the gate – like trying to run a marathon when you can’t even run a mile yet.  Don’t be impatient.
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Yesterday you were to make a list of 50 – 100 things you wanted to achieve/attain.

Now it’s time to really see if these are really burning desires…and then to prioritize them.

If this seems like a lot of work, I have to ask you how cluttered your mind is right now. If you’re already focused on the one or 5 things you want to achieve then you’re ready for the next steps. But if your mind is filled with many things that bounce around and around and you’re flitting from this to that when trying to think of what’s important to you in the near future, then this is the right method to get you going in the right direction. Remember that I said that how we “set up” for the process is so important because you have to be in the correct mental state in order for your subconscious to take the proper direction – and of course, you have to know what you want to order it to do!

1) Go back over the list and start crossing out the items you really had to reach for or those that when you look at it on the list you say “huh?”.

• When you see yourself saying “huh” or “what’s this all about”, give it a few minutes and look deep inside. Is there a deeper reason you put this on the list? If so, leave it there.
• Do NOT cross them out because  you think you can’t attain them..or that you can’t attain them in 2012. That’s not what this list is about.  It’s a list of things you really want.
• DO cross off those things that you look at and can say “I really don’t care about that” or “nah, there are many other things I’d rather do (or have)”.

2) After you’ve been over the  list and crossed out some items (maybe), then go over it and prioritize it based on what you really want (try NOT to use the word “need” – remember that your thoughts shape your world so put it in the positive – “I want”).

• Start numbering the priorities even if you have to go back and change the numbers
• Number the 25 most important

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I’m assuming that you’ve completed your inventory by now.  That’s an important step. It should also show you the importance of keeping a diary/journal on at least a weekly basis.

You can use the Gratitude Journal for that purpose and get the benefits of expressing gratitude as well.

Before you start making your list, I want you to think about what different words mean to you.

What is your immediate EMOTIONAL reaction to the following words:

“Goals”

“Resolutions”

“Desires”

“Accomplishment”

Here are some dictionary definitions:

“Resolution” – a decision to do something or to behave in a certain manner; A course of action determined or decided on. But interestingly from the Latin it means “to loosen or dissolve again”.

“Goal” – The purpose toward which an endeavor is directed; an objective.

“Desire” – to express a wish or make a request for; ask for.  Feel or have a desire for; want strongly;  The feeling that accompanies an unsatisfied state.

“Accomplishment”  – Something completed successfully; an achievement.

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