How Affirmations Can Help You Keep New Years Resolutions

The New Year is a wonderful time to make fresh starts. January’s cold weather and long nights encourage us to sit still, look within and take personal inventory. What have we achieved in the past year? Where did we fall short of our goals? How can we do better in the New Year? Asking these questions can be a rich and productive process.

Most of us can come up with a list of things we want to improve. After all, who doesn’t want a better relationship, increased cash flow or a more rewarding career? These are just a few hot button issues that can always stand a little “tweaking.”

Tackling these areas requires energy and focus. On January 1st, we are full of enthusiasm. We’re convinced that we’ll be able to stick with our plan to lose weight, find a new job, or meet a romantic soulmate.

But too often our commitment to meeting those goals drops off. Oh, we usually stick to our plan for a little while. But after weeks of denying ourselves sweets, sifting through Want Ads or scrolling through endless online dating profiles, we’re burned out.

In the meantime, temptations beckon. Surely, one little cookie won’t do any harm? Taking a quick break from sending out resumes will reduce stress levels, right? And with all of those “looking for love” ads blurring together, there’s no hurry to find a date.

If we give ourselves enough reasons to slack off, we lose momentum. Discouragement sets in and those New Year’s resolutions are soon tossed out the window.

This is the point where most of us give up. It’s usually around January 15th – long enough into the New Year to have given those resolutions a good try, but not so far into the New Year to have fully established healthy new habits.

Changing behavior isn’t easy. Psychologists have found that it takes at least 30 days of sticking with a new behavior before we can begin to recognize that this behavior is the norm and permanently move away from the past behavior. New behaviors don’t feel “real” to us until they have been established for at least 30 days.

And if we want to manifest external changes in our circumstances like finding a great job, this requires some sweat, too. A 2005 study found that it takes an average of 5.62 months for a US worker to find a new position. It sounds daunting, doesn’t it?

The good news is that there is one primary reason why people fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions. And by understanding this common booby trap, we can stop sabotaging those resolutions. Then we can gradually build up the necessary personal history (a minimum of 30 days of maintaining the new behavior) to create a brighter future for ourselves.

The main trip wire responsible for sabotaging our New Year’s resolutions has to do with our perception of time. The number one reason why New Year’s resolutions fail is because, from our vantage point, an entire year is a long, long time!

If we’re trying to overcome an addiction that we’ve had for years, the prospect of denying ourselves access to that thing (sweets, cigarettes, alcohol, etc.) for a whole year can be intimidating. A year can feel like an eternity. So to master our addictions and to keep our resolutions, we need to shift the way that we are looking at time.

12 step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous encourage people to just focus on controlling their behavior today. This allows people to bring their attention to the present, which is where we have the greatest power.

If you want to stop sabotaging those resolutions, shift the time frame around. Don’t pledge that you’ll avoid certain behaviors for the whole year. Promise yourself that you will keep your resolution today. Then, renew this commitment to yourself on a daily basis. This way, you will be breaking the time period down into workable “chunks” of time that will be much easier to handle.

French psychologist Emile Coue was the father of the world’s most famous affirmation: “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” Start each day with this affirmation. Then focus on keeping your intended resolution today. That’s all you need to do. Keep your resolution today and let tomorrow take care of itself.

By shifting your attention to the present and focusing on short 24 hour periods, you’ll feel better. You’ll get instant gratification, knowing that you successfully kept your resolution for an entire day. And this confidence will carry over to the next day, making it easier to keep your resolution that day, too.

Before you know it, a year will have passed, and you will have kept that important resolution all year long. Just think of the positive changes you will have achieved!