What happened to my New Years Resolutions????

February has already arrived, and those New Year’s resolutions seem to be but a distant memory.

What happened?

According to the theory of Alfred Adler, an Austrian Psychiatrist in 1912, people are always moving toward their goals and that all goals are ‘good’, meaning that they are of benefit to you.

However, that can be difficult to understand when you are obviously not sticking to your New Year’s Resolutions. So, it may be easier to understand by classifying goals into higher goals and lower goals, while still staying true to the Adlerian philosophy that all goals are of benefit to you.

It can also help us to understand why we are not meeting our goals or New Year’s Resolutions and why we can’t seem to change. This is because we are usually only aware of our higher, more inspiring goals which are in our conscious mind. These are the goals we find much more acceptable and are proud to own and which may have been part of our New Year’s Resolutions. Our lower goals are usually hidden in our subconscious mind, so we are often not aware of them.

The problem with this is the conscious thinking mind has very little influence on our behaviour.

This is why we feel thwarted in our attempts to change and reach our higher goals. It is because our subconscious mind has the most influence on our behaviour and why we find ourselves doing exactly what we had resolved to stop doing.

If we can bring our lower goals into our awareness, then it will be easier to understand why we can’t seem to stick to our New Years Resolutions or change our bad habits. To do this we will need to dig deep into our subconscious to reveal our lower goals. If we can do this and work out the benefit of these goals, then we give ourselves an opportunity to choose between the goals we want to move toward.

The first clue to finding the benefit is to look at the behaviours you want to change and see the results they create. Make a list of all those behaviours and what each deliver. Then ask your subconscious mind why do you want these results, what is the payoff? Be open to whatever explanation comes up for you.

Understand whatever you come up with may not be palatable to your conscious mind and difficult to accept. But this is the key to facilitating the change you desire. The payoff or benefit will always provide you with something you want but you may not want to admit to. For example the Lower goal pay offs for many people may be the 3 S’s. Safe, Sick and Small. To stay Safe with the known. To continue being Sick. To continue failing and staying Small.

Often the benefit is a way to keep yourself safe and to avoid failure or pain. To remain within your comfort zone, with what you know-even if that is unpleasant-it is still safer than risking the unknown. A specific example of a lower goal benefit maybe to remain unwell because this may ensure you will get the attention you would not get otherwise. It may be the only way to ensure your needs to be nurtured and cared for are met. Or maybe it allows you to avoid obligations or responsibilities you do not want. Being ill is a much more socially acceptable reason to excuse yourself than being judged as capable so therefore selfish or irresponsible.

Being unwell affords an individual a significant amount of personal power and control over their life situation and the people who are concerned for them. If they become well, maybe they fear they would no longer have the leverage to ensure their needs will continue to be met or people will no longer be concerned for them or do what they want. For many the benefits to being ill can be difficult to face up to and even more difficult to relinquish. So do not judge yourself regarding the benefits or lower goals you may discover. Everyone has them and there are always good reasons for them. Usually, they are born out of negative core beliefs formed from childhood wounds. (This exercise may also help you identify some of those negative core beliefs.)

Once we have worked out the pay off or benefits-your lower goals will become clearer. It would be helpful to write them all down. If you are still having trouble identifying your lower goals and their benefits, it might be helpful to look at the other side of the coin.

Do this anyway- write down your higher goals and list all the behaviours/actions that would move you toward those goals. Then imagine doing these actions and meeting your higher goals. Then ask your subconscious how doing those actions make you feel. If you sense any other feelings that are not positive, you will have another clue. If the feeling that comes up is uncertainty, anxiety, or fear, it could mean you have fears such as, fear of failing or succeeding, fear of being judged or finding out (proving to yourself) you are not good enough or deserving of success. Fear of being vulnerable or not being able to control the outcome. If you can identify your fears-you will be closer to identifying your lower goals and the benefits attached to them.

When you have identified your lower goals and your higher goals, and their associated actions, you now have the knowledge that gives you the power of choice. Which is easy to say, of course we choose our higher goals. But the hardest bit is to enact the behaviours and take the actions that will move you toward your higher goals. Typically, the reasons we resist these behaviours or actions is because it feels uncomfortable and stirs up all those fears which is very difficult to overcome. It is at this point we tend to give up and go back to what feels comfortable. But these moments are the deciding moments as to whether you will continue moving toward your higher goals or not.

The antidote to fear is courage. To find the courage to consciously feel the pain or fear and uncertainty, to feel uncomfortable and anxious and take the actions that will move you toward your higher goals anyway.

You will need to learn how to encourage yourself. Expect to slip but be committed to keep trying, again and again. Be persistent. Remember. Keep your list of goals and behaviours somewhere that is easy for you to remind yourself every day. Each time reaffirm your intention for the next day that you will take the actions that will move you toward your higher goals. Once you can encourage yourself and have a daily practice of consciously setting your intentions and making the choice, it will be so much easier move toward your higher goals.

Further Reading:

“The courage to be disliked” Icheriro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

“The 5 Second Rule” Mel Robbins

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