Why people don't keep their new year's resolution: Part 2 - Creating Desirable Change

If you would like to be one of the people who keeps their new year's resolution this series of blogs should help you understand where the problems are and how you can make it easier to keep your resolution.

In the previous blog I covered habits.  In this one I'm going to explain the other reason why using willpower alone doesn't always create long lasting change. 

Your new year's resolution usually involves getting rid of or reducing something you get pleasure from and replacing it with something that initially appears unpleasant or uncomfortable. Exercise doesn’t seem that appealing when you’ve had a long day and would feel more comfortable curled up in front of the TV.


Resisting the chocolate bar or extra beer is not easy when you know how lovely it will taste. Socialising with friends is more enjoyable than spending time looking for a new job or studying.

As with habits, your subconscious mind is getting in the way.  The reasons for making the resolution have probably been made at a conscious level.  "I need to stop eating cakes if I want to lose weight." "Stopping smoking will make me healthier." "Getting that qualification will improve my career."  Yes, those all make sense, but they don't bring you instant gratification and so you're trying to replace a distant future benefit with a very real present benefit.

To get over this problem and make sure that you stick to your resolution there must be some benefit to you that you can visualise and feel good about. You need to help your mind understand why you want to change and make it appealing, otherwise you just easily drift back into the old, familiar ways.  Think about the benefits and make them more real to you so they become part of you now rather than a distant dream.  Spend time every day reinforcing the benefits of your resolution by reminding yourself of what you will achieve and what you have already achieved.  Using self hypnosis can help you to make these visualisations very compelling and desirable.

 

Download my free article for more advice on keeping your new year's resolution.

Why people don't keep their new year's resolution: Part 1 - Habits

Now Christmas is over, thoughts turn to the new year and new year's resolutions. In the next few blogs I am going to give you some insight into why they can be difficult to keep and how you can improve the chances of keeping your own resolution this year.

Each year millions of people promise themselves they will get rid of an unwanted habit or introduce a new behaviour into their lives. The most popular resolutions are improving finances, losing weight, healthier eating, stopping smoking, increasing exercise, improving career or education and cutting down on drinking.

Depending on which survey you read, it seems that between 15-40% of British adults make a resolution but by the end of January 25-40% of those good intentions will have faded and people will be back to their old habits.

So why is it so difficult to keep a new year’s resolution?

Most people only use willpower and sheer determination. That works for some, but many people find it too difficult to keep going so they lose the incentive and drift back to their old ways.

The reason the willpower fails is because it is split two ways. Part of you wants things to be different because you think life will be so much better, whilst another part of you is happy with things as they are.

It's difficult to make changes, it takes effort and thought, whilst maintaining the status quo is much easier, especially if it's something that you enjoy. Once you’ve formed a habit your mind tries to make life easier for you by doing it without you even thinking about it. That's why it is so difficult to break a habit, because you've already started doing it before you have even realised what you are doing.

Lots of smokers automatically light up when they pick up the phone or when they have a drink in their hand because their subconscious mind associates those situations with smoking. Children who have been brought up to eat everything on their plate often still do the same as adults – even though they have been given too large a portion or they’re not really hungry and so the weight keeps increasing.

So how do you get around that problem? Well, the subconscious part of your mind is the part that looks after habits and hypnosis is a good way to access thr subconscious. Hypnosis can be used to create new habits so that you then use those habits without thinking - and so keeping your new year's resolution is a lot easier.

Download my free article for more advice on keeping your new year's resolution.

Hypnotherapy and Father Christmas

Whilst every hypnotherapy session is special, there are some that stand out more in my memory.

One of those started with "My son wants to know if you can hypnotise him into believing in Father Christmas again". This was the first such request I had had so I culdn't say I had previous experience, but I like a challenge.

The boy was aged 11 and his parents had thought it was time to tell him "the truth" about Father Christmas, not realising how devastated he would be. When I met him he was probably one of the most informed clients I had ever met. He had done his research, knew all about hypnosis and questioned me quite intensely.

One of the thoughts in the back of my mind was "Is it a good idea to tell an 11 year old to ignore what his mother tells him - especially when she's paying!?"

Hypnotherapy nearly always works well with children because they are so much more receptive to new ideas and happier to accept different ideas. This was no exception.

This year I had an update on the situation. The boy doesn't mind that other people don't believe in Father Christmas - he's real to him and that's all that matters.

If there is something in your life that you would like to think and feel differently about then give yourself a Christmas presnt and do get in touch and find out if hypnotherapy can help you.

Hypnotherapy for a needle phobia

I see a lot of clients for various phobias and for many of them 1 session is enough to overcome the phobia. In my experience this isn't usually the case with a phobia of needles though and most people need 2-4 sessions before they feel comfortable with needles.

I'm not entirely sure why this is but it could be because there are a variety of factors that contribute to the phobia whereas in other phobias there is just one issue to deal with.

Many people's first experience of a needle will be at quite a young age when they have vaccinations. A child in Britain is likely to have its first vaccination around 2 months and several others up to the age of around 3 years old.


If it's a painful experience then the child will remember it and have an instant dislike to needles in future as s/he associates it with pain.

Older children may understand what is going to happen but find that the experience wasn't what they were expecting and so they build up an anxiety around needles. For instance, one client was told by a doctor that "this won't hurt" and then it did so he stopped believing anything doctors told him in future. However, another person may be told "this will hurt" and so s/he builds up an expectation that it will hurt - and so it does.

These initial responses are then built on by other experiences with needles, which are usually unpleasant ones as there is already a fear there. In some cases the reason for having an injection will be because of an accident or medical procedure so there will be discomfort and distress added from another source as well. Without any positive experiences of needles the mere thought of having an injection becomes something to dread, whether it is with a nurse, doctor or dentist.

Another aspect of the phobia is that there is a natural response to a perceived physical danger. People don't like the thought of an object being stuck into them as it is likely to cause damage so it is a natural reaction to feel fear and try and avoid the situation.

When I help people with needle phobias the first thing I do is teach them Chinosis or EFT which helps them to reduce anxiety when they think about needles and also gives them confidence they can reduce anxiety when they are in a situation with needles in the future.

Then I use hypnosis to address any causes for the needle phobia and help to remove the anxiety from the past.  I think this is really important because if you simply give someone suggestions for feeling comfortable around needles, his/her mind hasn't had any new information as to why s/he should feel more comfortable so is likely to reject those suggestions.  If you have had hypnotherapy for a needle phobia in the past and it hasn't worked then this could be the reason.

Once the fear has gone, then it's time to give the suggestions for feeling comfortable around needles. This will be a feeling s/he has never had before so it's important to spend some time on that so s/he has a role model to follow in any future situations. There will also be suggestions for relaxing when around needles because relaxed muscles reduce the likelihood of feeling pain when given an injection.

If you have a needle phobia but don't want to use hypnotherapy to address it then before you have any injections in future talk to the person who will be giving the injection and explain how you feel. S/he is then much more likely to take some extra care to explain what s/he is doing or to keep the needle out of your sight as much as possible.

I would recommend learning something like Chinosis or EFT as both those techniques are ones you can use yourself and should help to reduce your anxiety. Also, spend some time learning how to relax because if you can relax your msucles during an injection it will be more comfortable.

Reduce overload, stress and anxiety - part 2

If you have followed the instructions in my last blog you will have some idea of how you are currently spending your time and what you either don't have time to do or what you are cramming in and feeling resentful about.

Now you have that information it's time to get rid of the things that are causing the stress, overwhelm and anxiety so you can enjoy more relaxation.

Start off by making a list of everything that you’re doing – or don't currently have to do but want to do.

Now decide what you really do have to keep, what you can remove and what you can will do for the moment because you’ve agreed to it but won’t do in future.  Mark each item on your list with Keep, Remove or Phase Out. I've given you an example below of how one person used this technique.

Print out the items you marked as Remove and make a list called "No I won't" and keep it somewhere where you will see it regularly to remind yourself of what you have decided.

Reduce overload, stress and anxiety - part 1

I haven't written anything for a while because I was taking some of my own advice and slowing down a bit.

The last 2 weeks have been very busy with a lot of long days and a weekend away. I could have written a blog, but it would have been one more thing to add to the long list of things to do, it would have made me more tired and have eaten into some precious down time.

So, I moved it down my to do list until I had a more suitable time to do it - and here I am again.

One of the things that causes people stress and anxiety is taking on too much. You do a better job, it's easier if you do it, you don't want to put someone else to any trouble, you volunteered because you felt guilty, or someone else volunteered you because you can always be relied on to help out.

If that last paragraph rings true for you then here's a technique you may find helpful. I've split it into 2 parts because each part is useful on its own and both together give the best benefit.

Get a diary and during the next week break down what you have to do in each day. Yes, I know this sounds like even more work but stick with it for a few moments.

Be accurate about how long it actually takes you to do everything each day. For instance

7am-7.20am: breakfast
7.20am-7.50am: shower & get dressed
7.50am-7.55am: collect everything for the day, lock up house
7.55am-8.30am: drive to work
8.30am-9.20am: answer emails, questions from colleagues

etc.

You'll see I've been quite precise about the times. Don't just put 8.30am-6pm: work as it doesn't give you enough information.

Obviously each day won't be exactly the same and some may be unusual but this should give you an idea of the gap between your intended activities for the day and what you actually achieved or your intended time for achieving things and how long it really took you to do them.

People often try to fit at least 28 hours into a 24 hour day (I can be as guilty as anyone) and so the stress and anxiety builds up because you either end up losing out on rest and sleep time or you have a long list of things you haven't achieved that carries on getting longer every day.

The final entry to make in the diary each day is the things you would have liked to have done but couldn't fit in and give an approximate length of time each one would have taken.

Part 2 of the exercise is in the next blog.

Hypnotherapy for nervous drivers

A recent poll for breakdown firm Britannia Rescue has identified the scariest roads in Britain. Spaghetti Junction was voted the worst, followed by the M8 junctions through Glasgow and London's Marble Arch.

However, for some people even pulling away into a quiet road can be scary. I have hypnosis downloads for sale through my website and the regular best seller is the hypnosis download for nervous drivers.

Anxious drivers are also regular visitors for 1:1 sessions for driving confidence.  Some people have problems only on motorways, others in driving tests and others, as I said, at any time.

Hypnotherapy can help in several ways. Firstly, I address any reasons for the anxiety. People can play bad experiences over and over in their heads and make them even worse so a minor incident can increase out of all proportion. Someone can remember the one time they made a mistake at a junction and got beeped at and forget the hundreds of other times when they did everything perfectly.

Clients have come to see me because their fear of driving on motorways was causing them problems in their work life. In one case a self employed person was turning down work if he had to travel on a motorway so it was restricting his income and in another case someone was starting a new job which meant that she had to travel long distances and avoiding motorways was no longer an option.

Sometimes there are practical reasons for driving nerves and I cover those in more detail on my driving anxiety page. Sometimes it is simply a habit and expectation of nervousness. Often it is a combination of addressing the practical problems and then reinforcing the fact that there is no longer any need to be nervous.

If you are a nervous driver why not use hypnotherapy to increase your confidence in your driving and make driving so much more enjoyable?