Ditch the New Year's Resolution, here's why...

Ditch the booze, cut out carbs, get fit, lose weight... whatever your New Year's resolution, it's time to ditch it and think again.

This might sound a bit dramatic but there are genuine reasons why New Year's resolutions end up petering out by the end of January. It's not because you are a failure or you can never commit to anything long term...it's because your subconscious mind is sabotaging you.

Yes you heard me right your subconscious mind is overruling your will power and sabotaging your efforts. Your subconscious is so powerful it will keep throwing things at you until you give up or you retrain your mind.

Here's how it works...

Put simply, your mind is made up of two parts your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. Your conscious mind is the part that decides 'I'm going to get fit. That's my New Year's resolution.' It's the part of the mind that you are aware of and is where your thoughts and will power live. Then you have your subconscious mind. That’s the bit of the mind that keeps your body working and where you store all your beliefs and programmes. See it as being like the hard drive in your computer. It downloads everything, stores it and refers back to it whenever it needs. Your subconscious has no emotion and no way of knowing what is real or imagined and what is happening now or in the past. It is there to keep you alive and if you've survived through the things it has stored then that's what it will deliver to you to keep you alive now.

If you imagine the mind as being like the iceberg above. The conscious part is the tip above water and less than 10% of the mind. The subconscious is the piece under water and around 90% of the mind.

What's that got to do with New Year's resolutions I hear you shout?

Well lots actually. I'll put money on the fact you have tried New Year's resolutions before and not stuck to them. Let's be honest we all have. This will be stored in the subconscious mind under NY resolutions. So when your conscious mind decides to set a NY resolution your subconscious mind filters through all it has stored and brings up all the times you haven't stuck to it and does its best to make you not stick to this new one. After all, attempts to change followed by stopping those attempts soon after has kept you alive so far therefore that's what needs to happen this time too according to the subconscious.

Add in your held beliefs, also stored in your subconscious mind such as 'I'm not a sporty person' or 'I don't like exercise.' and guess what... your subconscious mind will throw these at you too. If you take a look at the iceberg image you will see that the power of the subconscious is so much bigger than the conscious mind and why will power from the conscious mind just isn't enough sometimes.

What's the solution?

Don't despair there is a solution to help overcome and retrain the subconscious mind. Firstly, if you want to change habits don't start them at times where you haven't managed them before. Start your new habit before New Year or Jan 10th. It also takes a consistent approach of being aware of your held beliefs, seeing your subconscious sabotaging behaviours, acknowledging them and learning to ride the wave of change.

To find out more about changing your mindset join my Facebook group Finding Balance in a Busy World and look at the mindset coaching programmes I offer on my website.