The new year is upon us and chances are you would like to kick off next year with a New Year’s resolution. The tricky part isn’t coming up with a resolution you’d like to make, it’s in achieving it.

Even if you’re disciplined enough to start a new habit, often it can be difficult to stick to the change. Perhaps you’re looking for a new way help you accomplish these goals. There are many articles online that offer tips, tricks and hacks to help you avoid mistakes that commonly hinder you along the way. But what these tricks don’t help you do is formulate your intention in a way that will set you up to succeed.

Most often, failure to achieve a goal is in how we think and talk about it to others (and ourselves). The following is a roadmap designed to help you achieve any goal you set for yourself. If you follow these steps, you will not only create a plan to realize your goal, you just might actually achieve it.

Step #1: Properly Formulate a Suggestion (a New Habit)

When you are trying to create a new habit, or eliminate an old one, the first thing you want to do is talk about it in a way that helps you commit to something rather than making a general statement about it. The following are some criteria you can use to help you properly formulate a suggestion:

Make the suggestion positive: Eliminate negative wording such as “I can’t do this” or, “I won’t do this” or, “I will not do that.” This is especially important for habits you’re giving up (like smoking or eating poorly). Instead of focusing on what you will not do, focus your statement on what you will do.

EXAMPLE: “I ride my bike at 8:00 am tomorrow morning” or “I eat a healthy breakfast at 8:00 am tomorrow morning”

State the suggestion in present tense: We tend to accept suggestions better if they are said in the present tense as there is no room for doubt.

EXAMPLE: Instead of saying, “I will ride my bike”, say “I ride my bike”

Next, make the suggestion simple: Simple suggestions are easier to follow and accomplish.

EXAMPLE: “I exercise at 8:00 am tomorrow morning” is simply stated.

Make the suggestion believable to you: Your perception and belief is very important in your ability to follow through. If you don’t believe in what you are writing down, don’t waste your time with it. Start out by using an easy suggestion; something that you know you will be successful with.
Make the suggestion measurable:

EXAMPLE: “I ride every day at 8:00 am.” I either do what I suggest at 8:00 am or not.

Identify a specific reward your suggestion offers you: Identifying a reward will help you reinforce why you decided to make this resolution in the first place.

EXAMPLE: “I ride every day at 8:00 am and feel healthy and strong” Feeling healthy and strong is a great reward for those of us who exercise.

Step #2: Write your suggestion down

Now that you have the Criteria, write your suggestion down on paper. While writing it down may seem a little old fashioned, there are real psychological benefits to putting things down on paper. It not only clarifies your goal, it gives you direction and helps reinforce your intention (plus you will use this later in our exercise).

Step #3: Incorporate your suggestion with self-hypnosis by practicing these two simple techniques regularly:

Self-hypnosis is a process that uses self-suggestion to carry out a learned routine. This process has helped many people achieve their goals for years. Many of us utilize self-hypnosis techniques without even realizing it, but making a conscious effort to employ these techniques only helps facilitate the realization your goals. As you have time during your day:

1. Say your suggestion out loud to yourself:

Once in the morning when you awaken
Once at some other part of the day
When you go to bed, say the suggestion you wrote down out loud 10 times. Each time you say the suggestion to yourself, press down with a finger on to your thigh. Make sure you don’t fall asleep before completing all 10 times!

This practice will anchor in the suggestion even more. Doing this regularly develops a habit and completing this exercise just before going to sleep, helps root your suggestion into your subconscious mind.

2. Next, at least one time per day, Place Yourself into Self-Hypnosis. This can be done by doing the following:

Sit in a comfortable chair or bed and allow yourself to relax, uncross your arms or legs
Pick a spot on the wall opposite you, or above you (if you are in bed), just slightly above your eye level and keep your eyes focused there
Gaze at that spot in a very dreamy, effortless way and while you are doing that take a deep breath, then exhale
Take a second deep breath, exhale
Take a third deep breath, but this time hold the breath, close your eyes, and mentally count backwards from 3 to 1, then exhale
At this point (while breathing normally), allow your mind to concentrate on counting backwards from 25 to 1. Each time you count, imagine a number being written on a blackboard or a flash card so that your focus of attention is on the number as you are counting backwards
When you reach the number 1, count forward from 1 to 3 and open your eyes and just go about your business feeling relaxed and refreshed

By doing this, you are teaching your body to be hypnotized. This will be useful not only to begin the process, but also in reinforcing hypnosis in our final step.

Step #4: Reinforce the self-hypnosis techniques

After your first week, you can eliminate the night exercise. Bring your written suggestion with you as you place yourself into self-hypnosis (again, at least one time per day) and when gazing at that same spot on the wall, read or state your suggestion to yourself three times, breathing between each time.

Instead of counting backwards now from 25-1, allow the suggestion to go over and over in your mind. Say it out loud if possible, over and over to yourself. At the same time, imagine, visualize, even pretend that you are actually accomplishing what you wrote down.

EXAMPLE: while you say “I ride my bike at 8:00 am tomorrow morning,” imagine yourself getting out of bed, getting on your bike and rounding that corner outside your house. Imagine yourself sweating and rocking out to your favorite music while you bike past familiar sites.

In about 3 minutes or so, you’ll get the feeling that it’s time to stop.
At that point, count one, two, three —open your eyes and go about your business feeling refreshed and relaxed.

Finally, be patient with yourself. New habits are sometimes difficult to achieve. But most people see results within 2-3 weeks of using this technique. Some see them even after the first day!

Conclusion

We all have goals that we would like to achieve. Finding the best way to help us accomplish them can make all the difference. Self-hypnosis can be a huge help when trying to create a new healthy habit or get rid of a bad one. Give self-hypnosis a try. We think you’ll be amazed at the results!

Are you interested in learning more about how hypnosis can help you? Would you like someone to help you kick off your New Year’s resolution or help you formulate a self-hypnosis plan? Contact Rachel to schedule a session or learn more about hypnotherapy.

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