http://positivetranceformations.com.au/blog/new-year-resolutions-a-new-perspective/ This is the time when many people make New Year resolutions – or New Year goals. These goals are often to give up smoking, to lose weight or to exercise more. Several things will increase your chance of keeping your resolutions: not making them on January 1st, phrasing them positively and making the goals specific rather than vague.Several suggestions are given as possible New Year goals, such as trying new activities, keeping a journal, eating more fresh fruit and vegetables and decluttering one room in the house.

1. New Year Resolutions:
A New Perspective
positivetranceformations.com.au

2. It’s that time of year when people review
their lives and their goals.
There’s something about the blank
pages of a diary (or a journal) for the
upcoming year that is somehow
inspiring and filled with a bit of wonder
and mystery.

3. What’s the year going to hold?
Will it be better or worse than last
year, or just the same?
New Year resolutions tend to be part of
this process of reviewing a lifestyle.

4. It’s also the time of year when
hypnotherapists tend to be quite
busy, as some of the most common New
Year resolutions are to lose weight and
to quit smoking – and hypnosis is often
used to help achieve these goals.

5. But this article isn’t about weight loss
or giving up smoking, and isn’t a plug
for hypnotherapy to do this. Instead, it’s
a look at New Year resolutions and
how to have a greater chance of
achieving them.

6. For a start off, let’s start with a change
of terminology. How often do we talk
about “resolutions” outside of the
context of committee meetings?

7. And even in the business
context, resolutions are just part of a
bigger process – they’re decisions that
have been made about plans, goals and
actions to be taken.
We’ll talk about goals, dreams and plans
instead.

8. However, the word “resolution” does
contain a clue about the most
important factor in the whole process of
improving or changing a life.
It’s to do with the word “resolve”, which
is an old-fashioned word meaning
willpower or determination.

9. And whether or not you manage to keep
your New Year resolutions – whoops, I
mean goals – often comes down to the
mind and your beliefs.

10. Hypnosis can be used to help with a lot
of these things in the mind, whatever
they are, as it’s what we believe in the
deepest part of ourselves that really
influences our actions.

11. Anyway, back to the process of making
New Year goals.

12. The first thing is the timing.
January the first probably isn’t the best
time to make these goals and
plans, especially if you’ve partied a bit
hard the night before.

13. The “morning after” syndrome tends
to produce fuzzy thinking and the main
goal, plan or resolution made by people
who are hung over tends to be
something along the lines of “I will
never, ever do anything like that again!”

14. Even if you only had a couple of glasses
of wine or just stuck to the orange
juice, seeing the New Year in and
staying up to midnight means that
you’re probably not at your best and
you aren’t thinking as clearly as you
might be.

15. A better plan is to enjoy the day off and
just relax without thinking about your
life goals, get an early night to make up
for lost sleep and to take a bit of time on
January the 2nd to do the planning and
setting your goals for the year.

16. The next part of the process is to think
about what you would like to achieve in
the year in your personal life.

17. Often, New Year goals are about
breaking bad habits – smoking, excess
drinking and being overweight – but not
all of your plans and goals have to be
negative things about not doing this or
giving up that.

18. However, you can frame your goals in a
positive way or look at things that you’d
like to start doing or do more of. t’s
probably more helpful to frame your
goals in a positive way, as the phrases
you write down or say out loud engrain
themselves into your mind and into
your thinking patterns.

19. If you continually mention
“smoking”, even in the context of “I will
give up smoking”, you are thinking
about smoking and reminding yourself
of it. It’s far better to get what you don’t
want to do right out of your mind and
focus on what you do want.

20. When you set your New Year goals, it’s
best to have something specific that you
can aim to do.

21. Some things are all-or-nothing issues
(such as becoming free from a tobacco
addiction and rediscovering smells and
tastes, aka giving up smoking).

22. Others need to be defined. For
example, the goal of losing weight
and/or exercising more is a bit vague
and is thus harder to stick to, as you
can’t get a clear mental picture of what
you want to achieve.

23. It’s better to have a more definite goal,
such as “I will get my weight below 80
kg,” or “I will go for a run around the
block at least three times a week.”

24. A lot of people can’t think past weight
loss, exercise, addictions (e.g. tobacco
and alcohol) when it comes to New Year
goals. But why not think outside the
box and look at your whole life rather
than just your health?

25. Here are a handful of ideas to get you
started (some of which have been this
writer’s New Year goals in the past – but
I’m not telling you which ones!):

26. 1. To try four new activities over the next 12
months. That’s one new thing to try every
three months. You don’t have to succeed
at what you try – you just have to give it
a go. These activities don’t have to be
extreme or expensive – it could be
something as small as learning some sort
of craft, trying a new cuisine (either
cooking it or eating it) or having a go at a
sport you’ve never tried.

27. 2. Eating more fresh fruit and
vegetables, especially raw ones. The
pros tell us that we should eat at
least five servings of fruit and
vegetables a day, preferably raw and
preferably more than five. And eat a
range of colours –
red, blue/purple, green, orange, yello
w and white.

28. 3. Look beyond coffee when choosing
things to drink as a way of cutting
down on caffeine. Try some herbal
teas instead – some are delicious.

29. 4. Write a letter (yes, a paper letter
and not an email) to an out-of-town
relative every month.
5. Keep a journal.

30. 6. Say more positive things about yourself
rather than putting yourself down.
7. Get into the habit of chatting with
checkout staff as a way of overcoming
shyness and social anxiety.
8. Throw out all the clutter in one room in
the house.

31. Write your goals down and read them
out loud. What you say and imprint into
your mind is more likely to become
reality.
And find a way to keep yourself
accountable.

32. positivetranceformations.com.au