Why is it that so many people approach the New Year with immense clarity and enthusiasm to set New Year’s Resolutions, only to see their determination dwindle and peter out by day ten of the New Year?
There are many reasons why we set ourselves up for new beginnings and many reasons why we don’t follow through. This, of course, is not true in all cases. There are amazing stories of determination and transformation, yet for many people, by about day five, keeping the momentum up for that daily commitment to exercise or abstaining from that piece of chocolate cake is took great. Not only do we then give in and give up but we punish ourselves and add more weight or less exercise than before, to admonish our so called ‘failures’.
The reason New Year’s Resolutions fall short is because we expect ourselves to maintain a new habit or resist temptation with no regard for the supports required that set us up to WIN. When resolutions are made and broken it is indicative of the fact that they are operating in the same paradigm. To set ourselves up to SUCCEED we need to lift ourselves up out of the paradigm, as no issue can be resolved in the context within which it was created. We need to CHANGE the programs and beliefs that limit us and dissolve the feelings of GUILT and SHAME that keep us trapped in vicious cycles of behaviour that no longer serve our greatest good. THEN, we will be on a new pathway and can commit to setting goals that we will ensure are supported by the structures that determine we SUCCEED.
© Patricia Herreen 2012