Beyond champagne parties and the ball dropping in Times Square, the concept most linked to New Year’s is the resolution. This post aims to help you create and stick to your New Year’s resolutions list so that you can set realistic goals and achieve them with success.
As we make our way through the holidays, we are always dancing on that timeline that will culminate January 1st, when we resolve to trade our self-defeating habits for ones that will bring us greater health, joy, and prosperity.
In this post, you’ll learn more about how you can make New Year’s resolutions that last.
New Year Resolutions Lists Statistics & Success Rates
Here are some interesting statistics about New Year’s resolutions lists.
A poll taken by author Stephen Shapiro and the Opinion Corporation of Princeton, NJ, brings us these New Year’s resolutions statistics:
- 45% of Americans usually set New Year’s Resolutions; 17% infrequently set resolutions; 38% absolutely never set resolutions.
- Only 8% of people are always successful in achieving their resolutions. 19% achieve their resolutions every other year. 49% have infrequent success. 24% (one in four people) NEVER succeed and have failed on every resolution every year. That means that 3 out of 4 people almost never succeed.
Have you identified with any of these categories?
Of those who do set resolutions (these add up to more than 100% because some people set multiple resolutions):
- 34% set resolutions related to money
- 38% set resolutions related to weight
- 47% set resolutions related to self-improvement or education
- 31% set resolutions related to relationships
What are the topics of your resolutions?
It appears that the younger you are, the more likely you are to achieve your resolutions:
- 39% of those in their twenties achieve their resolutions every year or every other year
- Less than 15% of those over 50 achieve their resolutions every year or every other year
The less happy you are, the more likely you are to set New Year’s Resolutions. This is especially true for those who set money-related resolutions:
- 41% are not happy, 34% are moderately happy, and 25% are happy.
- There is no correlation between happiness and resolution setting/success. People who achieve their resolutions every year are NO happier than those who do not set resolutions or who are unsuccessful in achieving them.
Using a Year End Vision Quest to Make New Year Resolutions List
As the year draws to a close it’s natural to look back on our journey through the previous twelve months, noticing where we started and how far we have come. As you start to reflect on the past year and anticipate the year ahead, ask yourself a few questions to ponder in meditation. Let the following questions guide your thoughts for your New Year resolution setting.
Where are you?
This is not about your location in time/space, although that can be included. Think in terms of where your soul is along its eternal journey. Are you in your infancy or are you a matured soul? Are you lost or quite certain of where you are and why you are where you are.
Where are you going? Or intending to go?
Again, we are not talking about vacation plans. What direction are you headed in your life? What kind of character are you aiming to be? What type of knowledge or skills do you need to support your existence and enhance your consciousness, whether you are in this lifetime, between lifetimes, or in a future lifetime?
What do you want to experience along the way?
While it may seem obvious that we would want to be infinitely wealthy and have unlimited joy, again, think in terms of the types of specific experiences that will propel your soul to a higher level, give you greater depth of character and a broader understanding of the universe and all its inhabitants, including yourself. What types of experiences would allow you to know yourself better, or would challenge and stretch you in ways that would be beneficial. Hint: This usually requires getting out of our favorite comfort zone.
How will that experience shape you?
If you get to have the experiences that you listed above, how do you expect them to alter who you are as a character and as a soul? In what specific ways do you anticipate you will be different? What will you then be capable of?
What shape do you want to be?
As you imagine the results of your desired experiences, contemplate if that is the result that you actually want. Perhaps it is. In that case, where will that lead you next?
- How will your life be different?
- What new path will you be on, and with what goal in mind?
And if the results of your desired experiences do not seem to take you where you want to be, what might have to be different?
- What other experiences may be required?
- What knowledge or skill would still be necessary to continue to hone your soul to its desired shape and nature?
How to Set and Keep New Year Resolutions
If you are creating a New Year resolutions list, you’ve more than likely set a few goals or wishes that you’d like to see come true over the course of the year. How many times do people set goals or resolutions and then fail? Has this ever happened to you?
Let me share an important insight around setting goals and healthy New Year’s resolutions, and give you my inside scoop on success with resolutions.
When setting goals for the New Year, think of it more as a choice for a better lifestyle rather than rules of deprivation. You are setting a new pattern or trend leading toward a more desirable state of being.
If you encounter a setback, or make a mistake along the way, rather than seeing it as a failure and giving up, see it as more information. Now you know more about yourself and about the challenge. Foster your curiosity and fascination with this self-discovery. Explore it. Use it to inform your strategies moving forward.
For instance, you are committed to quitting smoking. After a few weeks of diligent non-smoking, you find yourself with a cigarette between your lips. Don’t assume you have failed and just start smoking a pack a day.
Take the time to figure out what triggered this bump in the road. Learn as much as you can about yourself and about that trigger, and then go back to not smoking again while you work on that. It is just information – not a cause for failure! You found out what doesn’t work, now get back to what does work.
Another tidbit to chew on.
A true resolution requires a decision. A decision isn’t wishy-washy, a maybe, or riding the fence. When you make a decision you have committed to one side of the fence or the other. Once you have truly decided, your reasoning, value, and integrity require that you are committed to that path. That commitment ensures the success of the resolution.
A failed resolution indicates you had not truly decided. Start there to get back on track. If it is something that you want, make the decision.
A Technique to Create Your New Year’s Resolutions
When you are thinking about your New Year’s resolutions, consider the following. While there are many ways to get there – diets, exercise, budgets – and a wide range of means to support our efforts – coaches, counselors, trainers, and so on – there is one universal technique that just may make the journey to your goals a bit easier – and perhaps more fun!
The Role Model technique is an anchoring protocol that allows you to obtain traits that you admire in others, or traits that you imagine you will have when you accomplish your goals.
This is a powerful tool used to reinforce new behaviors at the culmination of hypnotherapy and NLP sessions, and now you can obtain the benefits from this simple self-hypnosis on your own.
Imagine a future version of yourself. You have already acquired the success, goals, growth, and learning that you now seek. Imagine the nature of the attitudes, characteristics, or skills you would have.
Imagine that future version of yourself standing in front of you. A version of yourself who has already achieved your desired goals, gained the desired knowledge and skills, or removed the unwanted behaviors.
Look at that future person. Notice how “the new you” looks and moves. Observe your energy and anything else about you. Now close your eyes, take a breath, and step into that future perspective as you count to three.
Notice what it is like to be inside that body – the feelings, posture, attitudes, thoughts, confidence, movements, and anything else you notice.
At the count of three, step out of that future body and back into your own present body here.
Describe to yourself what it is like to be back in your present body. Continue to step in and out several times, each time describing the sensations and perspectives you observe, along with the qualitative differences between the two bodies.
When you begin to notice that there is little difference, or that you don’t want to step back out of that new version, it is complete.
Ask yourself which version of you is more aligned with the bright shining spirit that you were created to be. It would be understandable that you would want to remain aligned with your truest and highest self.
Then, continue to practice being in this new perspective. Remember, any time that you feel that you have slipped out of that desired sense of being, you simply have to remember what it is like, by closing your eyes and imagining it. And, once again, step into that new you on the count of three.
This is a useful tool that can be applied in many situations. For instance, this technique will assist in a weight loss goal by allowing the evolved version of you to lead you through the day, making the proper food and exercise choices.
Imagine all the ways that life could be easier and goals achieved more readily when you move through your challenges as though it’s your natural way of being.
How will you use this Role Model technique to achieve your New Year’s Resolution?
Get Help With Your New Year’s Resolutions List
Overeating, smoking, or being reactive is not the problem. These are only symptoms. To finally be rid of the unwanted symptoms, you have to identify the true problem by going much deeper into the causation. There is a secondary gain for every behavior—a deeper need that is being fulfilled, whether consciously known or not. As long as the deeper root, and secondary gains, are in place, it will be a frustrating battle to keep your stated resolution.
Maybe the most useful resolution for the New Year is to decide to seek help from someone who can guide you to the deeper roots of the issue, and quickly and finally give you the solution to the real problem!
- Limiting beliefs: possessiveness, insecurity, overly sensitive, self-sabotage, people pleasing, needing approval from others, being stuck, fear to express self, undeserving, writer’s block, worthiness, shame
- Health: anxiety, stress, hair pulling, smoking, procrastination, space clearing and decluttering, substance abuse, addressing cancer, eczema, back pain, neck pain, foot issues, depression, insomnia, nail biting, OCD, allergies
- Wealth consciousness: sound business decisions, removing blocks to success, finding balance, resolving issues with co-workers, career changes, preparation for retirement, confidence to create a business, feelings of lack and not deserving, hoarding
- Relationships: childhood abuse, sexual abuse, clearer communications, making healthier choices in mates and friends, dysfunctional family issues, regaining personal power, clear boundaries, decisions to leave an inappropriate relationship, rebuild a failing marriage, create a peaceful separation, social anxiety, decisions to get into a relationship, sexual preference issues, bullying, self-awareness, grief and loss
- Spirituality: meet and speak with spiritual guides, multitudes of past life memories, discovering life purpose, changing aspects, correcting philosophical misunderstandings and confusion, developing personal value systems, psychic self-defense, resolving spirit attachment, soul retrieval, wisdom messages from the higher self, discover a blissful state, self-denial, recovering from religious indoctrination, rewrite spiritual contracts, attaining the first spiritual experience, enhancing intuition.
If you’d like help creating aNew Year’s resolutions list, work with a trained professional to maintain long-term healthy changes in your life, book a complimentary Discovery Call with me.
Ending Thoughts
Creating a New Year’s resolutions list can be tough, but working with them consciously and deliberately, with a professional, will make sticking to them all the more possible.
If you have questions about new years resolutions and goal setting, share them below.
