Be a Warrior: Forget New Year’s Resolutions

Published at www.date.info January 2008 

Why do we make New Year’s Resolutions year after year, only to break them? Celebrity Life Coach and Human Behavior Expert, Patrick Wanis, says forget the New Year’s Resolutions -there is only one thing you need to do in 2008.

New Year’s Resolutions date back as far as 4,000 years, when the ancient Babylonians resolved to try to make amends for their wrongdoings of the past year, often also choosing to return to their rightful owners any farming equipment they borrowed during the year.

Why do we, though, follow this tradition and what meaning does it have in the 21^st century? Are we just wasting time, energy and effort, and simply setting ourselves up for failure and disappointment?

Top Ten New Year’s Resolutions
Did you know that more than eighty-eight percent of Americans will make at least one New Year’s Resolution? Do you know what that the number one resolution is?

Of course, you do – it’s probably yours as well:

To lose weight!

The next top resolutions are:

1. Save or earn more money
2. Quit smoking
3. Spend more time with family
4. Maintain a budget
5. Find a better job
6. Eat healthy
7. Become more organized
8. Exercise more
9. Become a better person

Now, can you guess what the success rate of these resolutions is?

Less than twenty percent of the people that make resolutions are successful in attaining success in even one of their resolutions!

Motivation
So why do we bother to make New Year’s Resolutions if we don’t follow through with them? And why do we have the sudden urge to make changes in our lives at the beginning of each New Year?

First, too many people simply adhere to tradition and do what others are doing to fit in with the crowd and to be accepted. I will address this point in detail later. Second, it is natural that we look back on the past year and consider what we would like to change and improve about ourselves and our lives. In other words, we long for a “fresh start.”  Third, the celebrations and festivities leading up to the New Year (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s parties and office parties) as well as our reunions with family and loved ones create an emotional state of vulnerability, self-analysis, introspection and expectations whereby we become aware that we can express more of our potential. In other words, the emotional pressure and expectations motivate us to make harsh judgments about ourselves, concluding that we want to or need to be better, do better and have more.

Is there anything wrong with these desires?

Not at all.

The challenge lies in the simple facts that we are not ready to actually make the changes and therefore our New Year’s resolutions are not promises, decrees, or pledges -they are simply wishes or at best preferences! E.g. I would prefer to lose weight but I won’t commit on every level of my being. I wish I could lose weight this year but I prefer to do nothing other than just express verbally that losing weight is on my wish list.

And voila! Our New Year’s Resolutions become nothing more than a simple, albeit long wish list!

Self-Sabotage
In many ways, our actions in regards to New Year’s Resolutions are almost equivalent to self-sabotage. We resolve to do something -we might even begin a program -and within a month or two, we will drop out. Subsequently, we will then beat ourselves up, telling ourselves that we are weak, undisciplined, powerless, a failure and a loser.

Part of the reason behind the failure of New Year’s Resolutions is the fact that many people set too many New Year’s Resolutions and then they have no plan as to how to turn those resolutions into reality.

As a Human Behavior Expert and Celebrity Life Coach I teach, support and encourage people to set goals. In fact, my definition of a life coach is simply someone who helps you to identify your goals and then helps you to achieve them. With a background in human behavior, hypnosis and therapy, the benefits I offer to my clients is to help my clients to identify the issues or subconscious beliefs that block them from achieving those goals. Accordingly, I have some clients who also have a life coach but come to me to help them uncover and release those subconscious blocks which now leads me to my key point.

Forget New Year’s Resolutions!

This year, stop wasting time and setting yourself up for major disappointment by making New Year’s Resolutions that you know you won’t keep!

It is understandable if, what I say appears to be contradictory, given that I encourage the setting of goals and then I proceed to advise you against making any New Year’s Resolutions.

So, let me clarify.

There is only one promise, one goal that I believe you need to set in 2008.

Recall, I said above that clients come to me to help them uncover and release those subconscious blocks that stand in the way of their happiness. Recall also, that in former articles here I have written that the key to all success is what you feel and believe about yourself – what I call the “Law of Deservedness” – you get only what you subconsciously believe you deserve and no more, and if you do get more you will sabotage it. Does that sound familiar?

Do you see the connection between self-sabotage and New Year’s Resolutions?

Place your energy and focus on one thing this New Year. Make one promise that will help you to then set and achieve all those other goals, dreams, desires and resolutions.

What is that one promise and goal that will set you free to achieve all those other goals, dreams, desires and resolutions?

To rid yourself of one of the key subconscious blocks to love, joy, success and happiness: to believe in your self-worth by approving of yourself.

In other words, stop seeking other people’s approval.

Stop playing the victim and become a warrior by taking responsibility for your actions and your life.

Please love and like me
At the beginning of this article, I wrote that too many people simply adhere to the tradition of making New Year’s Resolutions without questioning it, and thus they do what others are doing in order to fit in with the crowd and to be accepted.

Our desire for the approval, love and acceptance of others is one of the greatest killers of our human potential and happiness. When we do things to please others we lose all sense of who we are and we become powerless and unhappy.

When we act, say and do whatever others want us to in order to have them like us, we are in effect saying, “Your opinion of me is more important than my opinion of myself.”

When we are prepared to do whatever it takes to get someone else’s love and approval, we are giving away all of our power to that person. He or she now will determine what we think about ourselves, how we feel and whether will be happy or not today and tomorrow. Thus, we become puppets and everyone else can now pull our strings and decide what we will do and how we will act, and in turn, we lose our identity and integrity.

Seek your own approval
I have a celebrity client who has more than most of us ever even dream about: he has an intelligent, beautiful wife, loving children, multiple homes (valued at over $30 million total) a large yacht, many prized cars, a highly successful career and millions of adoring fans worldwide. Unfortunately, he is not happy.

When we first began working together, he wasn’t aware of it consciously, but his challenge was that he was still seeking his father’s approval. His father never wanted him to take up his present career and so, no matter how much success and money and fame and property he accumulated this celebrity could not enjoy any of it. He couldn’t enjoy and celebrate his success because he didn’t like himself because all he wanted was his father’s approval and validation. And without it, he felt worthless and insignificant.

Ultimately we are all seeking other people’s approval so that we can approve ourselves. In effect, we are saying, “If you like me, then I will be able to like myself…if you tell me I am good and worthy and special then I will believe that I am good and worthy and special. If you notice the beauty in me, then maybe I will notice it…”

So it doesn’t matter what you accumulate, what you achieve or how much and how many other people love you, all that matters is how much you like and love yourself. Remember, too, that no one can ever love you more than you love yourself, because you won’t let them. I recall one girlfriend saying to me, “No one has ever treated me even one-eighth as well as you do…and I don’t know what do with it.”

So, what did she do with it?

She sabotaged it and did everything she could to push me away to destroy the relationship. And at the end of it all, after she had destroyed the relationship, she said to me, “Why do I hate myself so much to want to create this as my reality? I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” She wouldn’t let me love her, because she didn’t love herself. There can be few things more painful and saddening to me than witnessing and experiencing someone who cannot recognize the beauty in them.

Can you see the beauty in you?

Can you like, love and accept yourself, all of you?

The Final Word
As a Human Behavior Expert and Clinical Hypnotherapist, I can assure you that, yes, we all need love, attention, approval, validation, appreciation and recognition from other people. We all need to be needed. These are some of the basic human needs as are food, water, shelter and skin love (the physical love and affection of other human beings.) If we did not need these things we would not be human; rather we would be like the amoeba cell that simply reproduces itself.

Thus, first seek your own approval but also allow yourself to receive the love, approval, recognition, appreciation and validation of others. Simply put, do not tie all of your self-worth and self-esteem to what others say or think about you. First, like, love, accept and approve of yourself, and then others will do the same to you.

Be true to yourself.

In the same manner that many ancient peoples performed rituals to do away with the past and purify themselves for the New Year, begin in 2008 to love and accept yourself, believing that you do deserve the best – love, joy, success and happiness.

Now, that is the only promise you need to make for New Years! 

May 2008, bring your dreams to fruition and may you realize that you are worthy of the best!

Click here to learn more about how to change your beliefs about what you deserve and get what you want www.patrickwanis.com/date