How are you progressing with your New Year’s resolutions?
According to a survey conducted by health insurance company Bupa in 2015, 66% of you will have thrown in the towel already. Making changes towards a healthier lifestyle is the most common resolution but it really doesn’t matter what your resolutions were, it’s not too late to get yourself back on track and achieve your goals in 2018.
According to the BBC, research indicates that we are more likely to be successful at achieving our resolutions if they are aimed at recovering something (a skill, activity or level of fitness for example) that we used to have, rather than looking to add something new to our repertoire. Here are some tips to help you get back (and stay) on track:
- Make sure your goal is something that’s really important to you. This may sound obvious, but sometimes we make resolutions to change things to make other people happy. Connect with the essence of your goal; how will achieving it improve your life, what impact will it make?
- Enlist the support of your family and friends. This helps you stay accountable and it also means that you’ve got someone else to offer you a different perspective or give encouragement when your motivation starts to flag.
- Expect that your motivation levels will fluctuate throughout the process. It’s unlikely that you’ll wake up every day with the energy and motivation to pursue your goals. Sometimes the motivation comes after you start doing the work. Connect back to why your goal is important to you to help get through those times.
- Break your resolution down into smaller, measurable goals. As the NHS explain here, having small sub-goals linked to motivating rewards can make you more likely to stay on track.
- Keep track of your progress. It doesn’t matter how you do it, it could be a journal or a computer spreadsheet or a series of pictures. Make yourself a record of your progress for those days when you just don’t feel like you’re getting anywhere.
If you still feel like you’re struggling to achieve your goals, hypnotherapy can help. It has been clinically researched and found to be effective for a wide range of lifestyle and habit changes from quitting smoking to weight loss and boosting self-esteem.
Depending on what you are seeing the therapist for, they will assess your habit and work with you using a range of techniques to help you achieve your resolutions.
Have a look at the National Council for Hypnotherapy’s directory to find a hypnotherapist near you and take a step towards achieving this year’s resolutions today!
