New Year’s resolutions might not last long for most people – but there is a way to use journalling to make your resolutions stick and let the positive changes you’re dreaming of become a reality.
The old things you want to let go of but that you find difficult to change, are only held in place by old, outdated beliefs. Hold this thought for a moment! Until you can identify and give up these beliefs, they’ll continue operating in the background because your subconscious believes them to be “correct”. Often, these beliefs are things we have just assumed since childhood – for example believing you could never be as intelligent or beautiful as your sister!
A simplistic example is wanting to be slim but continuing to eat food that makes you gain weight. If it was just a matter of willpower and following your new regime, your resolutions wouldn’t fail by March! In this instance there would be some underlying beliefs you could investigate in detail in your journal – such as “believing” certain foods are healthy when in fact they don’t make you feel good, or that if you eat you can stuff down the painful empty feeling inside; or that if you were more successful, you would have too much work to do and you would fail at it. These are some random examples of the kind of subconscious beliefs that keep the momentum going for things we do not really want.
Create positive change with a “simple” journalling exercise
The simplest way to align with a New Year’s resolution that will work is to accept that you want to be happy and join with that feeling of happiness by describing the good feelings in your journal, in the present tense. Describe in detail how you feel when the good things have already come about – and include feeling grateful for the lessons learned. Pretend you are the person you will be when all these things happen. Next, write down any negative thoughts that come to the surface, such as “you’ll never be able to do this” or “you’re not good enough”. It’s important to identify and capture these so they are no longer hiding in your subconscious. These are the thoughts and beliefs you need to be aware of as they are the kill-joy miserable depressed part that doesn’t want to change..
It’s your state of consciousness that determines how well your New Year’s resolutions will work. There are always old attitudes and assumptions to clear out in order to make space for the new. So make space to make conscious new choices by giving your time and attention to this process.
Another tip to make your resolutions effective is to review and revisit this process regularly throughout the year until the changes you want are securely embedded. Journallers who engage in this ongoing process can be very successful, and achieve great results in any life area you choose – because you are taking positive, consistent action to push back the momentum of entropy and repetition of the known status quo. Although change and growth is exciting, there is a part of our minds that resists change. We need to be able to see what the unconscious operating system is doing to hold us back, before we can change it and bring in the new so that it sticks.
Have a very happy year ahead meeting your goals and int the unconscious operating system intentions to the full, no matter what!
