 We’re six months into the year. Do you remember the new year’s resolutions you made back in January? I set 19 goals back on January 1st, and I’ve completed or exceeded about 10 of them - not bad! At halfway through the year, I’m halfway through my goals. Some of those goals were for the second half of the year, so I’m feeling pretty good about my success rate. Looking at my (currently) unachieved goals, two of my goals were to learn crochet and to knit one pair of socks. I have dropped the ball on both of those, and it’s interesting to explore why. “I don’t have time" Here’s a common excuse. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. The difficulty isn’t in the actual amount of time in a day, but how we choose to spend that time. In the case of my knitting and crocheting projects, I’ve certainly had time when I could have chosen to start on my knitting. What I learned in my networking group: there’s a difference between being interested in something and being committed to it. I’m interested in knitting and crochet, but at the current point in time, I’m much more committed to my personal development. I’m more likely to set aside 15-30 minutes for self hypnosis or tapping. This goal, set back in the New Year when I was fresh off the buzz of knitting a Christmas stocking for my son, probably had more to do with my state of the mind at the time than anything else. If there’s something on your goal list from January that doesn’t have current value in your life, or simply wasn’t achievable to begin with, feel free to cross it off or revise it. Life changing goals At least three of my incomplete goals fall under the same category: Finances. Two have to do with budgeting and saving money, and one has to do with making a final payment for a big family vacation next year. Interestingly, a fourth incomplete goal could impact those goals because it is a professional goal that I haven’t achieved yet. As a subconscious behavioralist, I can see that all of my remaining goals for the year are connected. By taking certain steps I can improve my business, thus increasing my income, and allowing me to save more money, and do things like take nice vacations with my family. These seem like pretty worthy goals, so what’s the problem? The problem is my comfort zone. Think of your success like a thermostat. You set it to a certain temperature, and then the system only kicks in when necessary to make it cooler or warmer. The same is true for your mind and your level of success. But many times our success thermostat was set years ago, perhaps even when we were a child. My favorite tool for working with these types of blockages is EFT tapping. The cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system. These energy disruptions cause anger, grief, stress, fear, and more. By tuning into a specific issue verbally while tapping on specific points on the body, we can clear these blockages. What’s next? Reviewing my 9 yet unfinished goals from 2019, I’ve decided to remove my two knitting goals. I may revisit them in the fourth quarter of the year, when the weather turns chilly. That leaves me with 7 goals to conquer over the next six months (assuming I don’t set any new goals). Conquering Goals 1. Review the goals in order of importance. “Meal plan all meals” doesn’t sound as important as writing four blog posts per month, but with a full time job and a family of nine to feed, taking the time to meal plan takes a lot of stress off by freeing my mind from thinking about what to make for dinner, as well as improving my budget by keeping food expenses in check. 2. Evaluate which goals will naturally fall into line when other goals are achieved. If I am meal planning all meals, then my health related goal will naturally be achieved. 3. Rate resistance to goals using a SUDS scale (Subjective Units of Distress) and see what emotional issues or triggers might be preventing me from achieving that goal, and use EFT accordingly to help clear that resistance Program Yourself for Success In the summertime, many business owners can become distracted. It’s easy to make excuses and stop pushing forward. By reviewing your success thus far, you can evaluate what changes need to be made. If you’ve invested in some personal development, you may have new ideas that you’d like to explore.
Take a quiet 15 minutes or so to imagine yourself one year in the future. Think about your personal relationships, your financial success, your business. Visualizing this future can help you gain clarity on what you could be doing now to make that future a reality. PS: It’s also fun! Seeing yourself in the future enjoying a fulfilling relationship, thriving health, plenty of money, and loving your job is a great way to spend 15 minutes...far better than, say, reading this blog post….so get to it!
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In a previous post, I discussed how I enjoy doing new year's reflections with my kids. I think this is an excellent went to get your children to being to have a sense of mindfulness and appreciation. There's lots of opportunities for reflecting on the past year and setting new goals - it doesn't have to be on January 1. The end of the school year is a great time for school aged kids to do this type of reflection. Here's an example of a year in review template (fun for grown-ups, too!)   Any day is a great day to set new goals, but at the end of the year the whole world seems to be focusing on bringing healthy new habits into their lives.
On January 1, spend some time focusing on all the good things that happened in the previous year. If you’re not already in this habit, try looking through your calendar, the camera roll on your phone, or your social media posts. Chances are, you have some red letter days to reflect on. Reflecting on your year can help you decide what you want to create more of in your life. Maybe you’d like to spend more family time, or more time working on your hobbies. It’s easy to find evidence that people don’t stick to their new year’s resolutions. There could be lots of reasons for this. Maybe the goal wasn’t achievable, or maybe you’ve tried and failed so many times that you begin the process already defeated. To combat this, try focusing on a bigger picture. Rather than small goals like “lose weight” you can focus on a long-term goal such as “live a healthy life” and then chunk it down into manageable pieces: Live Healthy Life
Journaling and celebrating your victories is an important component of positive reinforcement. I love doing my New Year’s visualizing and planning with my family. My kids all have different goals depending on their ages. My husband and I have goals for our family, our relationship, and we support each other in our personal goals (last year, we both lost 20 lbs). My sister is a great accountability partner because we enjoy sharing Pinterest boards or Goodreads challenges. Creating your best year with a buddy makes planning more enjoyable and builds accountability. A great technique is to pick your theme for the year. Maybe it’s “The Year of Yes” or “The Year of Less,” but choosing a word to encompass your year (last year my family dubbed it “Our Year For Success) can help you keep your goals at the forefront of your mind - without the stress and pressures of a laundry list of new year’s resolutions.  My sister and I, New Year's Eve 1999. I love making vision boards! I made my first vision board on New Year's Eve 1999. My sister and I had made a solemn vow to ring in the year 2000 together, regardless of anything going on in our lives, and we kept our promise. Many aspects of my vision board came to fruition and I've loved creating vision boards ever since. I use a Passion Planner, so each month I reflect on the previous month and reassess my goals for the next month. I love working with affirmations every day, both in self hypnosis and in my journal. I consider the New Year a time to reflect on everything that went on in the previous year as well as a time to visualize all good things for the year ahead. Creating a vision board is a fun and effective way to bring you closer to your dreams. But rather than bog yourself down with resolutions, why not lift yourself up with affirmations? Without further ado: here are my top 10 inspirational quotes.  I love this quote! You can always, always, start on a new adventure. Some of us find our passion later in life. And that's okay!  A study conducted by Stanford in January 2018 showed that positive attitude can impact learning and academic achievement in children. So there's no harm in trying to have a positive attitude in all situations.  So many of us struggle with perfectionism, or use perfectionism as our excuse not to accomplish our goals. But since perfectionism is not attainable, it's not a worthy goal. Why not strive to do all things with love - a much more noble cause.  I love this quote so much, I put it on my brochures.  Positive psychology is NOT about "fake it till you make it" or pretending you are happy when you're not. Positive psychology is about learning tools to help you deal with challenges and enhance well-being.  This is one of my favorite quotes of all time, by my favorite poet. Sometimes it's hard to step into our true self. We might be breaking rules of our family or breaking out of the box of people's perceptions. It takes courage to be yourself.  This is an excellent affirmation to share with your children and teens.  Don't quit your day dream.  The only person you have control over is yourself. We can't rely on other people to change to make our lives happier or easier. Find that joy within yourself!  Is there something you're not happy with? Maybe it's your weight, your health, your job, or a relationship. Hypnotherapy can be a powerful tool that can help you to reach your goals and increase your happiness. Contact me for a free phone consultation to see if hypnotherapy is a good fit for you.
When the new year begins, many people begin to think of the positive changes they’d like to create in their lives. But after that initial rush of enthusiasm dies down, we often find ourselves repeating our same unhealthy habits.
Did you know that your conscious mind -- your logic, reason, will power, judgement, and decision making -- is only about 10-12% of your mind? Some studies even state that our subconscious mind - the part responsible for your automatic behaviors, make up as much as 95% of our mind. When you have goals you're trying to achieve or healthy habits that you'd like to establish, your subconscious behaviors are the ones that prevent you from making positive changes as quickly or permanently as you'd like. This can seem unfair, but in fact your subconscious mind is always trying to protect you. For example, if your mom gave you a chocolate chip cookie whenever you skinned your knee, you have a positive association with chocolate chip cookies. Chocolate chip cookies make you feel better. This is not a bad thing! But, when your current goal is to lose 15 pounds, a chocolate chip cookie still makes you feel good, but isn’t fuelling your body in a healthy way for your current goals. That’s where hypnotherapy comes in. Hypnotherapy helps build new subconscious behaviors. When you’re using hypnotherapy, you’re giving the subconscious mind a new belief system. We really don’t need chocolate chip cookies to help us feel good any more. This is what makes hypnotherapy such a powerful tool for achieving your goals, reducing pain, improving sleep, and so much more. You’re getting your subconscious mind on board with your conscious goals. There are countless things hypnotherapy can help with. Just a few new year’s goals that hypnotherapy is perfect for include:
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