Why is it that only 8% achieve their New Years Resolutions which for the majority are mostly centred around improving their health, getting fit, putting themselves first finally, trimming down and yet it seems by February most have become stuck?
Your body is constantly eavesdropping on your thoughts and your feelings. It’s aligning your body to your beliefs, your behaviors and to what you are envisioning for yourself and the hardest thing about change is having the awareness to do things differently than you would have done previously.
As Einstein said “problems cannot be solved with the same mind set that created them.”
Neuroplasticity says that the brain cells that fire together wire together. Meaning that if you learn one new thing today then your nervous system will form new connections in your brain, which will then have a knock on effect to your body.
So, how do you make this new learning stick in your brain and then your neurobiology?
Sounds easy right?
But this is usually what happens….
You wake up in the morning ALL SYSTEMS GO only to have the tidal wave of your daily commitments come rolling at you as soon as you open your eyeballs in the morning.
You know..
Kids, partner, emails, Facebook, Insta, Linked In, breakfast but before breakfast coffee, shower, school drop off, work, boss, meetings.
And slowly but surely that burning desire within you to “get healthy” just gets eroded away as your environment just.
Well.
Gets on top of you.
As you keep working through your never-ending to do list.
And that vision for yourself eludes you and it feels like just another unicorn.
It just seems beyond reach.
At arms length.
And it is so frustrating and exhausting.
And so what’s happening is you are just grinding through it and you are pushing hard fitting it all in, keeping all the balls in the air taking care of everything and everyone else around you so everything keeps moving forward.
But you.
Its like you are just treading water.
And even worse at times it feels like you are going under from the demands of your never-ending list.
And you know what you should do because you’ve read or heard before someone saying something like “in case of an emergency and the yellow air mask comes down, place it over your head first before you place it on others.”
But you just can’t find the time or the how to delegate the tasks.
Life is busy and it can appear to be so hard to follow through on our goals due to our daily demands.
So,
How do you become part of the 8% that make the change stick?
1. Focus.
Daily focusing on your desired outcome will set the intention.
Write it out in a journal or your diary the intention for the day. It is best to do this from a statement of it’s already done. “I am now choosing to eat well my for body so that I have more energy, clarity and balanced mood.”
By doing this you are priming your brain for the change. What this does is it helps you at 3pm in the afternoon when the old self would have potentially reached for some chocolate, you will find it easer to stay conscious in these moments and reach for the almonds instead.
2. Leverage.
We get what we focus on in life. In other words, “our thoughts become our reality.” But even more than this we get what we feel about what we focus on. What is the feeling of being in the best shape of your life?
Wouldn’t you feel emotions like relief, liberation, freedom, and ultimately gratitude for yourself that you made this happen?
Before you get out of bed in the morning with your eyes closed create the vision in your mind of the outcome that you are wanting and then really embody the feeling of it. Move yourself into the feeling state of the outcome.
3. Take Daily Action.
Momentum breeds momentum do something everyday toward the desired outcome.
What’s the one thing that you have been putting off doing that you know you should be doing but it just seems like your day just gets on top of you and before you know it your head is hitting the pillow at night and another day has slipped by you?
Go do that thing…
Imagine the feeling you will have when you have done it.
Your daily action needs to be big enough so that you begin to see and feel results.
4. Accountability.
How do you know whether you are on track? The last thing you want to have happen is 3 weeks down the track you feel like you have made all of these improvements but you aren’t feeling any better, or you haven’t lost the weight for example.
You can’t change what you can’t see and your clever little mind plays tricks on you.
I was working with a client a while back whose main goal was to lose weight.
I finally convinced her to do her food diaries after she had hit a plateau for 1 month.
Being in plateau land is miserable and there is so much information out there about plateaus occur because of metabolic set points, hormones, thyroid problems, age etc.
But I find that this usually isn’t the case.
It’s the old self sneaking back in. This is all unconscious behavior.
This client is insulin resistant meaning she is really “sensitive” to carbohydrates and in her food diaries there were slices of sourdough bread, and a few serves of potatoes here and there.
Now, she thought she was on track.
The volume of starch that was going in was enough to plateau her weight.
Her brain had “deleted” that she had even eaten them.
Together, we made the necessary changes and fast-forward to her next review and we are back in the game again losing weight.
Accountability is crucial. You want to check in with someone who can help get the breakthrough for you.
Typically what happens in the above example is that 1 or 2 more weeks in plateau land which is what would have happened if we didn’t intervene and the internal story of “well maybe it is my age, maybe it is my hormones, maybe I should just accept it” starts to creep in and then those thoughts become self fulfilling and the towel gets thrown in.
5. Put Symbols Up In Your Environment.
Do a vision board, create a screensaver for your phone, put quotes and pictures on your fridge, in your bathroom, bedroom etc.
The way this works is the visual part of your brain picks up on these symbols in your environment and it constantly reinforces the vision you are working towards.
Again when you have these cues in your environment you will become less distracted by your external environment and your long list of to do’s as you remind yourself and your neural pathways of the permanent change you are wanting to create.
These 5 steps are a starting point for you to create lasting change. Without priming your brain by setting the daily focus then it is so much easier to get distracted by your external environment and then the change doesn’t happen.
It’s kind of like the poor little chicken running around with its head cut off.
Terrible analogy I know but it’s true.
If you need help with making change stick then respond to this email with an “I WANT IN” and we will take care of the rest for you.
As part of our service to our private clients we have now launched fortnightly LIVE online MINDSET sessions where we give you the tools to create lasting permanent change.
These sessions are valued at $375 but they are free as part of our commitment to delivering excellence to our community.
Please share with those that matter to you.
With love,
Victoria O’Sullivan.
