Do you remember that feeling at the beginning of a new school year starting with brand new school supplies? That sense of freshness and new beginnings as you open up the first page of an untouched notebook and hold a new sharp pointed pencil poised to make the first mark? Usually the first few pages of my notebook would have my best neatest writing, which then deteriorated as the time went on. My desire to do my best, reaching for higher standards of excellence dwindled as the day to day routines of daily living took me back to standards of mediocrity and just getting by.

The beginning of a new year is often the time when we reflect on the year that has past and see things that we would like to change and do differently. A new year represents a new start, a new chapter and a clean unwritten page in life. There is a desire to live better, reach new goals, and make a fresh start. We make New Year Resolutions and promise ourselves that this year we will do them. We summon up our will power and determination and step into the New Year with the greatest and sincerest of intentions.

Newyear

New Year Resolutions have become almost the joke of this season. It is well recognized that those well intentioned New Years resolutions often fail as quickly as they are made. One common resolution is the goal to lose weight by eating sensibly and exercise. It is the busiest time of year for Fitness Centers, but statistics have shown that new memberships are rarely kept up more than month or two. One thing that New Year resolutions do show is that good intentions are not sufficient to make permanent changes in our lives.

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Why do most New Year Resolutions fail?

We are motivated by pleasure in life rather than pain. Many resolutions involve some kind of deprivation of pleasure whether it be eating, or stopping a bad habit. We know that although we enjoy our bad habits, their consequences are ultimately not beneficial for either our health or life. The desire for instant gratification for short term pleasure is far stronger than any mental logical sense of reason in most cases. We know in our head what we should do, but doing it when it opposes our immediate desires is tough.

Our mind is composed of two parts; the conscious and subconscious mind. Brain activity takes place through neurons. In one second of time the conscious mind uses two thousand neurons, and in that same second the subconscious mind uses four billion neurons. This means that every second there are two thousand neurons making conscious decisions and four billion neurons making subconscious decisions. Which part of your mind has the greatest control do you think?

The subconscious mind is trained by the constant repetition of the beliefs, values and lifestyle that you have taken and lived from an early age. It automatically follows the familiar and well trodden path of well ingrained thoughts, beliefs and behaviors. The subconscious operates from such a well established history that it responds automatically with learned responses and behavior. This is why it is so difficult to create new habits of thoughts and behaviours, the subconscious mind will always try to revert to old familiar way of doing things, because they have become so automatic. The conscious mind has a hard job to make permanent changes because of the power of those four billion neurons. It can be achieved, but it takes hard work by the conscious mind to retrain our subconscious mind.

It is said that you need to do something at least 30 times to create a new habit. For changes in life long learnt behaviors it can take far more than that. For example have you ever got in the car and driven to your destination, and not really remember the journey there. You have been driving using the learned behaviors of your subconscious mind, and your conscious mind has been thinking about something else. However if you were to drive in a different country whose custom is to drive on the other side of the road – your conscious mind would be working very hard to correct the learned and instinctive behavior of your subconscious mind. In fact the whole experience of driving on the other side of the road feels wrong and uncomfortable, and if you lose your concentration you could find yourself automatically going back to familiar patterns and become a road hazard!

Here are tips for working on those New Year‘s Resolutions:

Don’t expect instant results – it’s a process

Plan small attainable steps to your desired goal

Celebrate each successful step towards your goal and work on it until it feels automatic before progressing to the next

Don’t give up when you experience relapses and set backs

Review your new steps and goals several times daily.

Visualize what reaching your goal will look and feel like

Write down your steps and goals.

Find people who will support and encourage you on the way.

New Year Resolutions – Do They Really Work?

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The Christmas melodies in our shopping malls remind us of the approaching holidays and the rapidly approaching New Year. New thoughts, ideas and plans pop into our heads. We ask: how are we going to celebrate Christmas this year?, what gifts do we have to buy?, and of course how are we going to celebrate the arrival of the New Year? Another year of promise and hope has arrived.

The thought of another New Year at our door step brings thoughts of apprehension. This year has only just started and the next one is already upon us. How does this happen? Each year seems to arrive so much sooner. Is it also bringing old age sooner? What a thought!

So, where did the “New Year” really come from?

Well, New Year‘s Day is the first day of the year in the Gregorian calendar, falling exactly one week after Christmas Day of the previous year. In modern times, it is January 1 and in most countries it is a holiday. It is a holy day to many of those who still use the Julian calendar, which includes followers of some of the Eastern Orthodox churches, and is celebrated on January 14 of the Gregorian calendar due to differences between the two calendars.

New Year was first observed in ancient Babylon about 4000 years ago. The Babylonian New Year began with the first New Moon (actually the first visible crescent) after the Vernal Equinox (first day of spring). The Babylonians celebrated New Year for eleven days: each day with a particular mode of celebration. It is probably safe to say the Babylonian celebration was a far greater event than modern New Year‘s festivities.

The celebration of the New Year is the oldest of all holidays. In all countries that use the Gregorian calendar, with the exception of Israel, New Year‘s Day is a public holiday. It is traditionally celebrated on the night of December 31, called New Year‘s Eve. It is celebrated with fireworks, from London at 0:00 to America, at 0:00.

Because the globe is divided into time zones, the New Year is celebrated progressively around the globe. The first time zone that ushers in the New Year is just west of the International Date Line. At that time the time zone to the east of the Date Line is 23 hours behind, still in the previous day. The residents on the central Pacific Ocean island of Kiritimati (Christmas Island), the eastern-most island in the island nation of Kiribati claim to be the first to usher in the New Year.

January 1 marks the end of a period of remembrance of a particular passing year, and ushers in new promises, new hopes and many New Year‘s resolutions.

Babies born on the first day of a New Year are commonly called New Year Babies. Often their names and pictures make the local newspapers, for most of us the only entry in a newspaper.

New Year‘s celebrations take on the form of large get-togethers with fireworks, or more secluded family-and-friends get-togethers at home. Make special memories and celebrate this New Year with a difference.

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Lots of people will have made New Year’s Resolutions for 2009. If so, I wonder how many are the same as ones they made at the beginning of 2008? Often we decide on 1st January that we are going to do things differently this year. But, come February we can find that we’ve slipped back into our old way of doing things.

The mistake we make is in trying to change everything at once. And usually, New Year’s Resolutions consist of depriving ourselves of something, or forcing ourselves to do something we don’t really want to do! Getting motivated is tough under these conditions. Maybe “quit smoking, cut down on alcohol and chocolate, reduce credit card spending, lose weight, get rid of clutter, etc” make it onto some lists year after year. You think to yourself – here we go again! So what can we do differently to get different results?

Ditch the resolutions! Yes, you heard me right! It is much more powerful to set intentions and goals for what you DO want, rather than what you don’t want. Also, try concentrating on one or two life areas each quarter of the year. Consider your health and fitness, finances, career, home life, relationships, personal dreams. Decide which one thing would make the biggest difference to you if you worked on it this year and start there. With just one major change to concentrate on, you are much more likely to make headway. The feeling of achievement will then give you the motivation to carry on.

Instead of just launching headlong into resolutions and goals, this is a good time of year to take stock. Taking stock works best as a written exercise as you can go back and review it again later, but you can still benefit from just thinking things through. Ask yourself: What did I achieve in 2008. What were the highlights, personally and professionally? What would I like to have done differently? What have I learned from that? What are the most important roles I play in my life? For instance, if being a parent is most important to you, do your working hours reflect that? What do I want more of in 2009 and what do I want less of? Is there any area of my life where I might be limiting myself or afraid to move forward? Who are the people in my life I want to see more of – or less of? What do I want to be true for me at the end of 2009? Remember to live in the present! Don’t put off doing what you truly want to do. Don’t wait till you lose the weight, find a new relationship or get that client. Enjoy your life now!

If you can’t imagine not having resolutions, really think about why you want to make changes. What are the long term benefits? Reframe how you look at your “resolutions”. For instance, instead of counting calories, cutting out everything you enjoy and feeling deprived, try making the new regime about healthy eating. Fresh food made from scratch, instead of ready meals, might be the only change you need to make in your eating habits.

If you really want to go to the gym three times a week, go for it! Otherwise consider the alternatives – walk more, take up a new sport or go to a dance class. Exercise doesn’t have to mean the gym.

To tackle overspending, keep a spending log. If you really know where the money goes it’s easy to make savings and you can still afford to treat yourself from time to time. Remember, it can take as little as 21 days to form a new habit.

A fun exercise you might like to try: Imagine it is December 2009 Write down an account of the year you have just had, as if it had already happened. What do you want to be true for you at the end of 2009? Don’t edit or criticise what you write. Look at all areas of your life – career, relationships, finances, health and fitness, social life etc. This is even more powerful if you hand write it as this connects more directly with your subconscious than using your computer. Try to take stock of your life every few months. It really will pay enormous dividends. Have a great year.

(c) Shona Partridge

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