Happy new year!
Did you make any new year’s resolutions for 2020?
It’s funny how we have the power to make changes and create goals whenever we like but there is something about the turn of the century that creates this fever of self-improvement.
A quick Google search reveals that the tradition of new year resolutions goes back thousands of years to the times of the Babylonians and consisted of them making promises to the Gods to pay back debts or return objects they borrowed.
These promises alongside a 12-day celebration of the new year, held in mid-March alongside planting of crops, are thought to be the forerunner of new year’s celebrations and goal-driven resolutions. Humans have continued this tradition for 4000 years.
In a poll in 2018, around 45% of people asked said they had made new year’s resolutions, with the most popular being “to be a better person” and “to lose weight”. Considering that around 80% of diets fail and most people put the weight back on it’s worrying how this impacts self-esteem.
It’s now nearly halfway through January and I already know many who have given up on “dry January” or “the next gimmicky diet”.
So why such a low rate of success?
Many of our new year’s resolutions become victim to the “Law of Conflict”. This law states that whenever there is a battle between the conscious and the subconscious mind, the subconscious will win.
The reason for that is quite simple. One of the most important roles of the subconscious mind is to control all our vital functions and keep us alive. Think about if you try and hold your breath. You can have all the willpower (conscious mind) in the world but your subconscious will make you take a breath. You can’t fight it. Even if you were to fall into deep water and know on a conscious level that you will take in water if you try to breathe, your subconscious will make you take that breath.
Your subconscious mind also craves equilibrium, it needs balance and does all it can to maintain that.
So, the next time you make a resolution to lose weight or break a bad habit, if you fail it might be that your subconscious is working against you.
One of the things I work on during the HypnoSlimmer program is the subconscious thought patterns. It doesn’t matter how badly you want to fit into a bikini, if the subconscious mind has been programmed to believe wasting food will lead to punishment or rejection then it will continue to clear the plate long after you are full. If you have used food as a response to stress, this will happen over an over. Unless you fix it.
So, what is the solution?
The subconscious mind is powerful, but it is also very receptive. With the right tools and support, new programs can be created. Empowering beliefs and confidence to achieve your goals can be established and hypnosis is a great way to help with this process.
The subconscious responds well to suggestion, repetition and emotion. Let’s go back to the example of eating as a stress coping strategy……under hypnosis a feeling a relaxation is created, and anchoring can be used to recreate this feeling outside of hypnosis. Coupled with working on releasing any need for food as a coping strategy and positive suggestions and success with overcoming this can easily be achieved.
You really can be the master of your subconscious mind and by doing so take back control. Who knows….2020 could be the year all your resolutions come true?