Happy New Year from The Mind Sanctuary Team!!! We hope you’ve had a wonderful festive break!
As we all ponder on the new year ahead, many of us will have made New Year Resolutions, that we’re absolutely one hundred percent committed to seeing through – Yes?
To kick start our wide collection of emotional wellbeing articles for 2012, change coach, Christina Dillmann of Mind Quest Life Strategies, discusses why we may want to hold off for a little while before implementing those new year resolutions, in order to make change easy..
New Year, New You or Not Yet? by Christina Dillmann of Mindquest Life Strategies
According to a YouGov Survey carried out in January 2011, around half of the UK population (nearly 34 million people) make a New Year’s resolution each year. Losing weight and getting fit regularly top the list of most popular New Year’s resolutions, but despite the initial motivation and good intentions, an unsurprising 4 in every 10 resolutions don’t survive even the first month. In the long-run, only 3 in 10 resolutions last the distance.
Are New Year’s resolutions just a lot of bah humbug, destined for guilt-inducing failure?
Lack of planning and lack of real motivation certainly do play a role: joining a gym might seem a good idea in the heat of the moment, but altogether different when you have to go there regularly after a tiring day at work.
However, could there be another reason for New Year’s resolutions’ abysmal track record? Why does change sometimes happen so effortlessly, without painful ‘mind over matter’ struggles and with permanent success?
Finding the right time to make a change
‘The time is right’ is not just a saying; it is a very accurate observation of one of the basic principles of change: timing.
Despite our 24/7 culture we humans, like all of nature, are still influenced by seasonal rhythms: we draw inwards in winter, slow down, sleep longer – even our eating habits change. We crave heavier, warmer foods compared to other times of the year: hot stew in August anyone? Thought not.
As far as our mental and physical energies are concerned, we just like to take it a little slower in winter than at other times during the year. The uplifting energies of spring and autumn are generally much more favourable times for change than either the lazy, warm days of summer or the introspective energy of winter.
Working with the rhythms of the seasons
Unfortunately for New Year resolutionists, winter doesn’t stop on the first of January – it will be at least another couple of month before nature tentatively rises from hibernation and puts that spring into our step again, which makes dieting, getting fit or introducing new habits just so much easier.
While not ideal for change, winter with its more introspective focus is the perfect time to take stock of where you are and plan where you want to go. So you are all set and ready for change when spring comes around.
Spring’s energy for new beginnings is also reflected in the common notion of ‘spring cleaning’: we want out with the old, in with the new.
So hold back just a few weeks more, and make a Spring resolution instead of a New Year’s resolution and see just how easy and painless change can be.
Christina Dillmann is a change coach, psychotherapist and hypnotherapist working from Melton, Woodbridge. For more information about her services, read her profile on The Mind Sanctuary Directory, visit her website, or connect with her on twitter.
