Setting New Year Resolutions with the Law of Attraction
Simple Strategies to Align Energetically With Your New Year Resolutions and Achieve Them Easily
By Valerie Dawson, Certified Hypnotherapist
Creator of Hypnotic Visualization Guided Audios
It’s that time of year again – people all around the world will be evaluating their progress and gearing up to start fresh on their goals in the New Year. Unfortunately, many of those people will not make any more progress than they have in previous years, simply because they are locked into self-destructive thought patterns. Have you done this too?
Each year you think about the changes you want to make, conceive a genius plan that will change your life forever, and wait eagerly for January 1st to arrive. When the clock strikes midnight on December 31st, it’s full steam ahead! You’re off to a great start and confidently began taking the steps you know will lead directly to the life of your dreams!
And then… a couple of weeks later, maybe even a month later, you begin losing steam. At first it may be small things, like encountering a few minor obstacles or struggling to stay motivated about working on your goals; but before you know it, you find yourself feeling stuck, tired, angry, frustrated… and wondering what you were thinking when you set these stupid goals anyway. Eventually you give up and vow to do better next year — but the following year you just repeat the same cycle all over again.
Whether the above scenario describes your situation exactly or not, it stands as a common example of how easy it is to set New Year Resolutions — and how difficult it can be to follow through and actually achieve them. If you have struggled in any way to stay committed to your New Year goals, this report is for you.
We’re going to highlight 15 common problems (we’ll call them “challenges” for the sake of keeping a positive outlook!) that people encounter while pursuing their goals, and offer helpful remedies for working through them effectively.
More importantly, we’re going to address these challenges from a Law of Attraction standpoint – because you cannot manifest anything in your life until you are energetically aligned with it first! Action alone is not enough – you’ve probably learned that from your previous unrealized resolutions. Get ready to see your New Year Resolutions in a whole new way – and achieve more than you ever believed possible before.
Resolution Challenge #1 – Identifying the Essence of What You Want
One of the biggest mistakes people make when setting New Year Resolutions is that they don’t first get clear about what they REALLY want, and more importantly, WHY they want it.
Do you know what you want – really? Don’t be tempted to skip over this section because you think you already know what you want. Think about this for a moment:
How many times have you achieved a goal and then quickly realized that you weren’t satisfied with it? Such an experience can be confusing, to say the least! You wonder how you could have chosen a goal that now seems not to matter at all to you. Or you point to one tiny negative aspect of the outcome and say, “Well, if it wasn’t for that, I’d be satisfied. It just didn’t turn out like I hoped, that’s all.”
But that’s not usually what’s happening in this type of situation. Rather, you may have set a goal based on the surface circumstances that you believed would make you feel happy, rather than focusing on the underlying ESSENCE of what you really wanted.
For example, let’s say that one of your goals was to work less so you have more time to enjoy life. You manage to rearrange your schedule so you have more time to yourself, but within a few weeks you start feeling bored and restless. You decide that freedom is overrated and eagerly bury yourself in work again – but you still feel dissatisfied and yearn for something more.
What happened with this goal?
There are numerous possibilities, but most likely you were craving something else, not just “freedom” – but you never connected with exactly what you wanted.
Perhaps you were actually craving creative expression, which you could have satisfied by setting aside a few hours a week to explore your artistic side. Maybe you actually desired a deeper spiritual connection, which you could have achieved through daily meditation or journaling.
Every goal you set will have a deeper desire stemming from it. But the Law of Attraction cannot deliver the essence of that deeper desire unless you know what it is.
The Remedy:
Rather than focusing on the external situation or circumstances you are trying to create with your New Year Resolution, focus on the underlying FEELING you want to experience.
Whenever you set a goal, your immediate question should be, “Why do I want this?” Don’t allow yourself to give a pat answer like, “It will make me happy.” WHY will it make you happy? What feelings will these new circumstances or experiences provide for you? Why are these feelings important to you? What deeper needs will they satisfy?
You may be surprised by what comes up when you start asking questions like this. You’ll become aware of needs you didn’t even know you had. But that’s a good thing, because only by knowing what you truly want can you tune into it and attract it.
Another side benefit is that by being super-clear on what you want, you may discover much easier and quicker ways to get it, maybe by making some small changes instead of tackling huge goals that will take years to achieve. Sometimes we can’t see the forest for the trees and end up making things much harder than they need to be.
When you tune into the essence of what you want and stay focused on it, the Law of Attraction will be able to lead you to the easiest, fastest, simplest methods and opportunities to help you achieve it. That beats long, complex, difficult plans that you would have created yourself, right?
Resolution Challenge #2 – Holding Positive, Yet Flexible Expectations
How many times have you set a massive goal while thinking, “This will be a breeze”?
You imagine yourself effortlessly taking action each day, easily moving toward your chosen outcome and reaching it in record time. Unfortunately, that’s not the way it usually happens.
Instead, you struggle almost from the get-go and feel overwhelmed and frustrated when you don’t seem to be progressing as quickly as you planned. Rather than acknowledging that you may have set your sights too high, you may be tempted to give up altogether.
Unfortunately, we often fail to realize that it is far easier to think about doing something than it is to actually DO it, especially if we have limiting beliefs that might be holding us back.
With every goal you set, understand that there is going to be a period of transition as you work toward it. You can’t expect to make a giant leap from mailroom clerk to CEO in a matter of weeks, or lose 50 pounds in a month, or go from being a couch potato to a marathon runner overnight.
But you also can’t allow negative expectations to prevent you from trying at all. Rather, your goal should be to keep your expectations positive but also flexible.
The Remedy:
One good way to do this is to start smaller. Not many people will enjoy hearing that, but it’s a good idea if you want to avoid getting frustrated and giving up.
There’s nothing wrong with setting big goals and having big dreams, but you also want to start with those that you believe are most achievable. The truth is that all goals are achievable, especially when you work in co-creative partnership with the universe, but you may have a hard time believing that some goals are achievable, and if you believe that you will block them from manifesting.
However, you can overcome these obstacles by either setting smaller goals to start with, or balancing your expectations of how and when your goal will come to fruition. Which one you choose will depend on your personal preferences.
There are people who can set a large goal, hold to their vision and diligently work toward it for years until they achieve it. They never lose sight of what they’re working toward, they don’t doubt that they will receive the outcome they want, and they’re willing to wait patiently until it happens.
But some people are the opposite — they want results and they want them fast! If that describes you, you’ll probably be happier setting smaller goals and enjoying moderate results as you go along.
Remember, you can expand your goal consistently too. If your ultimate goal is to be earning $100,000 a year with your own business but you feel too overwhelmed or intimidated by that figure, start with a smaller goal of $20,000 and then raise the amount when you reach the first benchmark. If you want to lose 50 pounds, try focusing on 10 pounds at a time. Fifty pounds sounds like a lot, but when you consider that it’s only 5 sets of 10 pounds, it seems a lot more achievable.
Nearly any large goal can be broken down into smaller pieces – and when you focus on achieving those smaller goals they eventually add up to big success!
Another important point to keep in mind is that you don’t have to achieve the entire goal on your own. Allow the universe to work with you. Hold to the vision and you will be led to the people, resources, opportunities and means to achieve the goal more easily than you could accomplish on your own. Just be flexible about how and when all this progress happens. Expect the best but don’t get attached to specific ways or timeframes.
Resolution Challenge #3 – Balancing Effort with Alignment
Working toward any new goal seems hard at the beginning, but sometimes we underestimate just how hard it can get. Sometimes the struggle is the result of unrealistic expectations, like we covered a moment ago. Taking on a bigger goal than you’re ready for can definitely make the journey seem impossible.
But there’s also a more common reason for goal-achievement seeming difficult at the beginning, and that is: you have to build momentum before it will seem easier. When it comes to working with the Law of Attraction, this applies both physically and energetically.
A common analogy used to describe momentum is pushing a car. To get the car rolling, you have to exert a lot of force. But the longer you push, momentum begins to take over and you hardly have to push at all to keep the car moving along.
Goals are very much the same in that you have to work harder at them in the beginning than you do toward the end. If you work at them for long enough, you enter this “zone” where it just seems simple to take the action steps and make steady progress each day.
Another good example is starting a new fitness routine. Your first workout will probably seem a little bit like torture. Your muscles will burn and ache; you’ll be drenched in sweat and end up wondering if a sedentary life might not be so bad after all…
But what happens if you keep pushing through your workouts every day? You build muscle and get stronger. You feel more energetic. You’ll probably even begin to enjoy working out. The stronger you get, the more easily you are able to keep up the momentum.
Every goal will have this in common. But it goes much deeper than physical effort; you also need to build up your “vibrational muscles” by consistently attuning to the outcome you are trying to create. All of the action in the world cannot overcome energetic gaps. If you don’t work daily on getting aligned with your desired outcome, the actions you take will seem much harder than they really need to be, and probably be completely ineffective.
The Remedy:
Obviously, the remedy for this one is simple: keep your efforts in proper perspective by working steadily toward the outcome each day and remembering that you are building momentum. Keep reminding yourself that it won’t always be so challenging. While that sounds simple, it may not always be easy to convince yourself. Therefore, here are a couple of strategies that will help you align with your goal mentally and energetically:
Relish the challenge: Have you ever noticed that your self-talk determines your attitude? If you keep whining about how hard it is, that it will take forever to make progress, you’re going to be miserable and probably make very little progress.
On the other hand, if you were to keep telling yourself that you’re enjoying the process, that it’s not so bad, that you feel great as you take one step after another toward your goals – you’ll instantly feel more motivated and your progress will probably be greater too. Convince yourself that you have what it takes to keep moving forward and that it’s not as hard as you feared. Often, just believing this is enough to make it so.
Baby steps: At any point if you feel intimidated or frustrated because you’re not making progress quickly enough, try narrowing your focus onto ONE tiny aspect of your goal. Every goal will probably have numerous action steps that you’ll take each day as you work toward it, but trying to do all of them at once might prove overwhelming.
If that’s the case, try doing just ONE of the action steps until it gets easier. Then add another one, and another, until you are doing all of them with less struggle.
As for energetic alignment, one of the best ways to get steadily more aligned with your outcome is to keep imagining it already accomplished. Sit quietly and envision yourself enjoying the goal already accomplished. See yourself enjoying your bigger salary, living in the home of your dreams, feeling great about your slender new body. Do this daily and you will be consistently altering your energetic signal to match the essence of what you are trying to achieve, which means the physical effort you need to apply to achieve it will be much less than it would be otherwise.
Resolution Challenge #4 – Doing the Inner Work First
We typically think of goal-achievement as an external process only. We are here at Point A, and we want to move to Point B. While we do indeed make external changes, we also need to remember that we become a different person through the achievement of our goals. Therefore, we will undergo an internal adjustment even as we’re making external transitions. This is especially true in the context of the Law of Attraction.
You can’t achieve anything outwardly until you get aligned with it within – which means steadily becoming the person who will have the outer circumstances you want.
How does this pose a challenge?
If you don’t prepare yourself for the new circumstances you’re trying to create, you won’t be mentally and emotionally ready to handle them. Let’s use an example to expand on this idea.
Imagine that your goal is to lose 50 pounds. If you simply focus on “losing weight,” you’ll overlook the fact that you gained weight in the first place because of specific reasons – and you’ll struggle not to gain it all back unless you make some inner changes.
Doing some inner work might reveal that you gained weight because of low self-esteem, believing that you don’t deserve time for self-care, or emotional vulnerability. You can bet that these kinds of beliefs need to be resolved – or they will keep limiting your ability to lose weight, keep it off and live a happier life.
The same thing happens with other types of goals. You can set a goal to be more successful in business, but if you don’t first understand what has limited your success thus far, you might simply repeat the cycle at a later time. Do you have trouble believing in your own abilities? Are you afraid of taking risks? Do you have a fear of selling that limits how much you promote your products and services? Addressing these underlying issues may make the difference between failure and success.
The Remedy:
One of the most effective strategies for overcoming this challenge is to consider the qualities you’d need to handle the achievement of your goal, and begin building them now.
For example, if your goal is greater business success, ask yourself what qualities a successful business person would have – such as confidence, courage, creativity, flexibility, and so on. Once you’ve got a list of these qualities, begin developing them within yourself. Practice being more confident and courageous, express your creative side more often, work on being flexible as often as possible, etc.
If your goal is to live a healthier lifestyle, consider why you haven’t been living such a lifestyle until now. Do you have trouble believing that you deserve to be healthy and happy? Does much of your diet consist of “comfort food” that covers emotional issues you could be resolving in a healthier way?
If you work on these inner issues while you’re also doing the outer work, your chances of lasting success will double. As you may have guessed, this is also one of the secrets of successful manifesting — being able to “be” that which you want to attract. If you want to attract a lot of money, you need to BE a person who has plenty of money. If you want to attract your soul mate, you have to BE a person who already has their soul mate. This is powerful and the Law of Attraction begins responding to your new signal immediately.
Resolution Challenge #5 – Sacrificing for Your Higher Good
Every goal requires sacrifice of some kind, and it’s easy to forget this sometimes. Most often we tend to focus on what we stand to GAIN from the achievement of our goals, not what we stand to lose. However, failing to acknowledge and prepare for the sacrifices can set us up for a rude awakening and threaten our eventual success.
What kind of sacrifices have you made for your goals in the past? Did you give up some of your favorite television shows so you could spend more time working on your goals? Did you give up your favorite dessert when you started a new health regime?
Let’s face it; sacrifices aren’t fun. It usually means giving up something you enjoy, even if temporarily. But, does that always have to be true? You may be surprised to learn that with the right outlook, sacrifices can seem like a good thing.
The Remedy:
When it comes to sacrifices, only two things matter:
Willingness: Very often when you are willing to release something that is no longer serving you, it becomes a simple act. It’s only when you keep clinging to something that letting it go seems really difficult.
It also helps if you keep affirming that what you stand to gain is worth the cost of what you’re giving up. Rarely are these rigid concepts; more often they will change according to your perceptions.
For example, when you first set your goals and start working toward them you may believe that your sacrifices are well worth it. Your motivation is strong and you’re feeling optimistic that you can overcome any temptations to slide back into old habits.
But as time goes on and you begin to miss the things that once provided a sense of comfort or pleasure, you may wonder whether you can continue making these
sacrifices. In fact, the question “Is it worth it?” is one you’ll probably have to answer over and over again until you reach a point where your new habits have overridden the old.
Trust: Even more important than being willing to let go of destructive or unproductive habits is the ability to trust that the actions you take today will pay off in the future. You have to trust that the situations, people, places and things you are releasing will be replaced by even better things later.
Belief comes into this step in a big way – if you don’t believe that your goals will be realized, you may have trouble trusting the bigger process of manifestation. However, you can work on this by consistently affirming your belief and your trust day by day. The more you do, the stronger your belief will grow and the easier it will be to trust.
Resolution Challenge #6 – Believing in Yourself and Your Abilities
Lack of belief in your own abilities is also a common reason why New Year Resolutions fail. Let’s face it; if you really believed you could achieve your goal, you probably would have done it before now! (Unless your goal is brand new, of course. But most people set the same goals multiple times before they actually achieve them.)
How can you tell if you don’t have a strong belief in yourself?
Probably the most telling clue is that you’ll hesitate when it comes to taking risks. You may find yourself holding back on something you really want to do, or you might procrastinate on taking action steps related to your goals.
In order to achieve any goal, you first need to believe you CAN. This involves much more than hoping or wishing — it requires an unshakable core belief in your own ability to work through challenges, stay committed and do whatever it takes to be successful.
Most importantly, the Law of Attraction will only deliver outcomes that do not conflict with your existing beliefs. If you believe you cannot achieve a specific goal, the Law of Attraction will simply make sure the outcome validates your doubt.
But how do you build belief in yourself and your abilities? Most of us are not born with this level of confidence; we have to build it little by little.
The Remedy:
There are two angles from which you can approach this challenge:
Mentally: One of the best ways to build up your belief is to keep envisioning yourself accomplishing the goal you have set. Did you know that athletes have participated in studies where they mentally “practiced” their sport over and over – and their physical performance improved as a result? It’s true! Visualization is incredibly powerful, so use that tool to your advantage.
You may also find it helpful to recite some powerful affirmations like these:
“I can do this, I know I can.”
“I’m willing to believe that I can handle this challenge.”
“I’m nervous, but I’m going to do it anyway.”
“I grow in confidence with every step I take!”
“With enough practice, everything becomes easy.”
Additionally, you may also want to take a few minutes each day to think about some previous accomplishments. What other activities did you once feel nervous about, but have since mastered? Relive those old fears and feel proud about your ability to overcome them! Remind yourself that you can do the same thing with your current goals.
Physically: Do the very thing you fear! The more you do something, the more confident you’ll become with it, right? It’s just like anything else in life. The first time you drove a car you were probably shaky and nervous. The first time you gave a speech you were probably standing in a puddle of sweat.
It’s the old “fight or flight” response to a perceived threat – and it’s completely normal! It’s your mind’s way of telling your body that it may be entering a dangerous situation. But if you can keep pushing through that fear, it will eventually go away because you’ll condition yourself to believe that there is truly nothing to fear.
Resolution Challenge #7 – Transforming Fear of Failure
Fear of failure is one big reason why many people can’t seem to move forward in life. They constantly dream big dreams, set big goals, create big plans – only to find themselves procrastinating, holding back, or making little progress.
Worse, how does the Law of Attraction respond to fearful thoughts and feelings? It simply delivers exactly what you’re focusing on, positive or negative. If you fear failure you are essentially setting yourself up for failure, or at least constant obstacles or problems that block the progress you want to make.
Even if you don’t think this challenge applies to you, remember that a fear of failure isn’t always obvious, either. Our minds have ways of tricking us that are very convincing.
For example, let’s say you set a goal to lose weight and get into better shape for the New Year. You start out very well, sticking to your workouts and eating right. The numbers on the scale are beginning to creep downward — when all of a sudden you find yourself in situations that are ripe with temptation. You forget to bring your nutritious lunch to work one day, visit the cafeteria and choose the most fattening meal on the menu — then you wonder why you did that? Or you call a friend and invite him or her to dinner at a restaurant and use the outing as an excuse to eat more than you should, effectively blowing your healthy eating plan for the day.
You may not realize right away that you’re sabotaging your own efforts. In fact, it’s usually quite the opposite: you feel frustrated because these outer influences are interfering with your plan to lose weight! However, if you dig deeply enough and look closely at what’s really going on, you’ll usually find some fears lurking beneath the surface.
You may realize that your shrinking size brings up feelings of fear because you know that other people are going to start noticing, which will put more pressure on you to keep going. You may be afraid of reaching a plateau and getting stuck there – so you invent external situations that you can point to and say, “I failed because of that.”
There are many possible ways for a fear of failure to make itself known, but you’ll usually notice it because of an inner sense of hesitation or dread, or even a lack of self-belief like we covered previously.
The Remedy:
In order to overcome a fear of failure, you have to first understand that goal achievement is not a “one shot deal”. Rarely are situations so black and white. In fact, the only way you can truly fail is if you stop trying.
You may fear slipping up with your healthy eating plan because it will mean “failure” — but the only person who can decide whether you’ve failed or not is YOU. If you decide that one slip is not a big deal and get right back on plan, have you failed? Of course not.
The concept of “failure” is based solely on your own perceptions. If you refuse to buy into a rigid concept of failure and success and instead just take the process one day at a time – one moment at a time – you can’t fail. You will simply keep making positive choices and enjoying the progress that comes along with them.
It’s also important to keep reminding yourself that the Law of Attraction will deliver exactly what you focus on and believe. So, make it your mission to focus on success! Focus on believing that you can accomplish anything you desire. Focus on how great you will feel when your goal has been manifested in full living color.
Resolution Challenge #8 – Transforming Fear of Success
Closely related to the fear of failure is the fear of success. It may seem that these two challenges are complete opposites, but they are more similar than you may think. Both of them involve one common belief: that you won’t be able to handle the consequences of the outcome.
A fear of failure raises worries about the consequences of not achieving your goal, while a fear of success raises worries about the consequences of succeeding at your goal. In both cases, you doubt your ability to handle the results.
Using the same weight loss example from above, a fear of success may cause you to worry that your friends and family will treat you differently if you lose weight. Or you may wonder how you’ll ever be able to have a good time at parties if you can’t enjoy your favorite foods – after all, a “skinny” person doesn’t pig out on junk food.
You may worry about the expense of buying a new wardrobe to fit your smaller size – or any number of other fears related to the outcome of your goal.
Once again, you are operating under the assumption that you won’t be able to handle such a possibility, or that it would be somehow “bad” if it happened – and the Law of Attraction will simply deliver an outcome that matches your fearful feelings.
The Remedy:
Overcoming this fear is simple if you come up with some coping strategies ahead of time. Start by making a list of your specific fears, along with things you could do to cope with them if they happened.
Fear:
I won’t know how to relate to men when I’m thin and attractive.
Strategy:
I would relate to them exactly as I do now, but I could also work more on building my self-confidence to deal with unwanted advances, etc.
Fear:
I really can’t afford to buy a new wardrobe right now; maybe I should hold off on this goal until spring.
Strategy:
I won’t need smaller sizes immediately. Between now and then I can set aside the money I used to spend on junk food, cut back in other areas, and even check out some consignment or thrift shops – they always have great deals on clothing. The universe will provide everything I need; I do believe that.
Whatever your specific fears are, addressing them will convince you that you CAN handle the outcome, no matter what it may be.
Even better, be sure to keep visualizing the strategies being easy and fun. Visualize yourself feeling confident and strong. Visualize yourself having plenty of money to cover everything you need, and so on. Then you will be focusing on solutions, not potential problems.
Challenge #9 – Dissolving Obstacles
It’s happened to the best of us; we’re moving steadily along toward our goals, feeling motivated and empowered — when all of a sudden there’s an obstacle in our path and we freeze like a deer caught in the headlights of a car! What do we do? How do we get around this? Yikes!
Unexpected obstacles are responsible for many unrealized goals, simply for one reason: the goal seeker didn’t have a plan in place to deal with it, so they gave up. Preparing for obstacles is one of the most important parts of goal-setting – but few people take the time to do it. When most of us set a goal, we’re optimistic and confident that we can succeed. We don’t like to think about possible obstacles that may threaten our dreams.
However, not planning ahead for obstacles practically guarantees that we won’t know how to handle them when they appear – and appear they usually will. This is true even when using the Law of Attraction – in fact, many of the obstacles you encounter will likely be the result of subconscious limiting beliefs that you may not even know you have.
The Remedy:
The solution to this challenge is clear: make obstacles a non-issue and they will dissolve.
Believe it or not, your own reaction to the obstacles usually determines how tenacious they are. If you get flustered, upset, or intimidated by them, you will only make them seem stronger and more intimidating. If you react with calm and positive expectation, they will usually resolve themselves — or you will be shown solutions to move beyond them.
This nonchalant attitude does require a bit of faith and trust that the universe is working with you to manifest your dreams. Rather than seeing obstacles as roadblocks, you have to elevate your vision and choose to see them as nothing more than momentary stopping points.
If you keep focusing on the fact that there is a solution for every obstacle (even if you don’t yet know what the solution is) you will call forth that solution from the universe.
Most often it happens quickly as long as you don’t block it with negative thoughts and emotions!
Resolution Challenge #10 – Surrendering Your Need to Control
Have you ever set a goal to accomplish something where much of the outcome was out of your control? For example, let’s say you set a goal to secure 10 new clients each month for your consulting business. That sounds like a fine goal, but the outcome is dependent upon the actions of other people; in this case, your clients. You can’t force new clients to seek your services. You can’t control whether they sign on with you or not. And if you try forcing the outcome, you’re probably going to end up feeling frustrated and disappointed.
The Remedy:
A better way is to set your intention for the outcome you would like to achieve, and then let the universe help you achieve it – even if it happens in ways you didn’t expect. For example, rather than intending to secure 10 new clients each month, why not decide how many active clients you would like to have 3 months from now, and then ask the universe to show you the best way to achieve it?
Keep visualizing yourself servicing the exact number of clients you wish to have. Visualize being paid by those clients and enjoying productive, beneficial business relationships with them. The more you focus on this, the more the universe is going to start sending the means to make it happen.
Either new clients will find their way to you by word of mouth or previous marketing you did; or you may suddenly receive an inspired idea to attract the attention of new clients. “Inspired actions” like these are usually unexpected and very easy to put into motion.
Even if you don’t receive “inspired actions” from the universe, you can certainly start taking your own actions day by day. However, do so from a detached, calm state of mind. Your goal is not to force the outcome to happen, but to do your part in the co-creative process.
Don’t worry about how everything will come together; simply do what you can and then let it go. Trust that the universe will help you in ways you couldn’t have imagined and enjoy the process that unfolds before you.
Resolution Challenge #11 – Opening to Universal Guidance
Part of releasing control of the “how” and working in partnership with the universe involves actively seeking inspired guidance each day. Most of us have a lot of mental static, scattered thoughts, doubts and worries fluttering around in our heads so that we aren’t aware of our own inner wisdom – but it’s always there, available for our use. In the process of goal-setting, this wisdom can be a powerful tool for success if you remember to use it. Unfortunately, many people don’t use it, and they end up struggling and floundering about and making very little progress on their goals. Or, as described in the previous challenge, they try to control the entire process and end up creating more obstacles for themselves.
The Remedy:
What if you had an advisor that knew everything about you and your life and could give you answers for every question you have ever or will ever have? Would you consult this advisor? Of course you would; who wouldn’t?! Well, that advisor is your own inner wisdom and it is always there for you, always connected to universal wisdom, and can show you the easiest path to achieve all of your goals.
To tap into this wisdom, all you have to do is get very quiet and relaxed. Do your best to quiet your mind, release scattered thoughts, and then focus your attention inward. You may not feel anything in particular, except perhaps very calm. Asking questions in this calm center will usually result in answers coming back to you. They may be very soft or subtle, like a fleeting thought, a few brief words, or even a quick mental image. As simple as the answers may seem, they almost always hold a solution or opportunity that you probably didn’t see on your own.
For example, with the goal of securing new clients, you might ask your inner wisdom if there is anything you can do to help the goal become reality, and you might suddenly get an idea to run a special holiday offer that would entice new clients to sign on with you. Or even if an answer doesn’t come to you immediately, you may recognize an opportunity a day or two later while you are going about your normal activities.
Like any skill, tuning into your inner wisdom gets easier the more you do it. Get yourself a notebook and create a daily practice of asking questions and jotting down any answers you seem to receive. Over time you will be amazed at how much insight can come to you in this way.
Resolution Challenge #12 – Eliminating Conflicting Priorities
Another big challenge that can derail your resolutions is conflicting priorities, or even conflicting intentions. You know what you want and you probably know what you need to do to get it, but following through can sometimes be difficult. You may have demands in other areas of your life, such as family or work that prevent you from sticking to your plans. Or you may have a lot of distractions that make it hard to stay focused.
Conflicting priorities can cause such a heavy sense of defeat that you may be tempted to give up on your goals altogether. Even more importantly, feeling conflicted within only communicates that conflict to the universe, which means you keep attracting more conflict and split intentions.
The Remedy:
The good news is that there are several ways to handle inner conflict.
First, consider whether your outer distractions might actually be caused by you, and you are creating chaos without realizing it. For example, if you have a fear of success or failure related to your goals, you may find yourself agreeing to extra obligations so you can avoid working on your goals. The extra work provides a great excuse for why you failed to achieve your goals again. Or you may procrastinate to the point where everything converges at once and you need to scramble to meet deadlines at the last minute. Sometimes what seem to be outer distractions may actually be caused by inner conflict. That would be the first place to look, and resolve any fears, doubts, uncertainties or problematic issues you find.
If you discover that you’re not sabotaging your efforts but still have a lot of chaos and disorder in your life, do what you can to get balanced and organized again. You may need to cancel a few unnecessary obligations so you’ll have more time to work on your goals, or speak to your family members and ask for their support and cooperation. Remember also that the calmer and more centered you feel, the more your outer circumstances will reflect that essence. Take time each day to quiet your mind, relax your body and create harmony in body, mind and spirit.
If you can’t seem to find time to work on your goals, remember that “priority” means taking precedence in order of importance. That means you’ll probably have to decide what’s most important to you, moment to moment. Just how important is your goal? Is it more or less important than your other obligations and commitments? If your goal is truly important to you, you will do what it takes to make time for working on it – no matter how much juggling or eliminating unnecessary obligations you may have to do.
No matter the causes of your inner and outer conflicts, you will find that they can be easily resolved if you focus on the solutions rather than getting upset about the challenges.
Resolution Challenge #13 – Strengthening Your Commitment
This challenge goes hand in hand with prioritizing because if you are not truly committed to your goal, you simply won’t make it a priority in your life. When you first set a resolution, you are “resolving” to do something. That means pledging, or swearing to the fact that you will follow through. But how often do you really mean this when you set goals?
What many of us do instead is attach little addendums to our pledge, like staying committed until we lose interest or obstacles threaten our confidence. That’s why getting crystal clear about what you really want (as covered in Challenge #1) is so important. You’re much more likely to go the distance for something you want badly rather than a vague desire.
Still, no matter your objective, you’ll need to make a firm commitment to achieving it and believe that you will achieve it, no matter what. That’s what commitment is; a pledge of constancy and loyalty. Believe it or not, the universe absolutely reads the “signals” of strong commitment or wishy-washy intent and delivers outcomes accordingly. But how do you get and stay committed?
The Remedy:
The number one way to strengthen your commitment is to make your goal so vitally important that quitting is simply not an option. Imagine what it would be like to have a goal that you simply couldn’t give up on; a goal that you would work toward for years on end if you had to. Is your goal that important to you? If not, you’ve got two choices:
Make it that important: Take some time to think about the negative consequences of abandoning your goal. What would the likely outcome be? Poor health and reduced lifespan? Professional stagnation? Depression and emptiness? Are you willing to accept those outcomes? You’ve got to convince yourself that there is no other acceptable outcome for your goals but success.
Choose a better goal: If you can’t seem to summon the level of commitment needed to achieve your goal, it’s probably not as important as you’d like it to be. Take some time to think about what you really want, and set a goal that WILL be vitally important; important enough to inspire a rock-solid level of commitment.
Keep affirming daily that your goals will be your reality and you will not accept anything less. Insist that they will be manifested in full physical form – and the universe will receive your signal of unwavering faith and deliver exactly what you intend to see.
Resolution Challenge #14 – Devoting Time and Energy
Closely related to commitment is willpower – or what could be called “strength of will”. Willpower could accurately be described as the unyielding determination to follow through with an intention.
This is a little different than being committed to a goal. Willpower focuses more on the moment to moment decisions we make in relation to our intentions. Let’s face it; you can set all the intentions you want but if you don’t have the willpower to stick to them you won’t get far.
Most of us have strong willpower until it’s tested by temptation or challenges. We’ll be sticking to a new healthy eating plan, feeling fine – until a coworker brings in a box of donuts, or until the scale stops being cooperative. We’re committed to working on our goals every day – until we decide we’re not seeing results as quickly as we’d like.
In order to achieve a goal and manifest the outcome you want, you need to work on it daily. Not just physically, although physical action is part of it. But I mean also mentally and energetically – building up the energy, intention, and inner vision in addition to taking action.
If you don’t do that, you won’t be putting forth enough focus to make the goal reality.
The Remedy:
How do you strengthen your willpower so that you will put forth the time and effort to keep working on your goals? The best way I’ve found is simply to create a daily practice. Set an intention to work on it consistently and stick to that intention like glue. You could start with smaller intentions if you feel overwhelmed by bigger ones; for example, set an intention to avoid eating sugar for just one day, or an intention to work on your goals for just 10 minutes each day.
The most important thing is to not give up when you slip. If you give in to temptation once, simply strengthen your resolve and start again. The more you do that, the stronger your willpower is going to get. It is a process, however, so don’t expect yourself to display tremendous willpower right away. Just keep practicing setting intentions and following through with them and before long it will get easier to dismiss any temptations that come your way.
You can also use the power of visualization to strengthen your willpower. Visualize yourself easily being able to ignore temptations; or eagerly spending time working on your goals each day. The more you focus on being committed and empowered about your goals, the more you will find yourself displaying that strength and focus when you really need it.
Resolution Challenge #15 – Staying Motivated and Enthusiastic
I purposely saved this challenge for last because it’s probably the most common problem that people face when it comes to pursuing their goals. It’s difficult to keep pushing forward when you lose that inner fire, isn’t it? Yet it happens to all of us at one point or another.
Feeling motivated and enthusiastic is easy when you first set your resolutions, because you’re feeling inspired and excited about the positive changes you’re going to make in your life. Most often you are optimistic about the ease of achieving your goals because you haven’t had to deal with obstacles, distractions, stress and frustration yet. Once you begin working toward your goals and the going gets tough, your motivation begins to wane.
Maybe you get frustrated because you’re not seeing results right away, or you wonder if you took on too big a goal with all of your other responsibilities. Even worse, you may start doubting your own capabilities. All of these things act like big splashes of water on your inner fire.
Before you know it, you’re running out of steam and don’t know what to do to get
moving again.
The Remedy:
There are many ways to re-ignite your motivation, but some are more effective than others. Below are some of the best ones that work well in context with the Law of Attraction.
Take a break and let go: Believe it or not, stepping back from your goals for a day or two can do wonders for your state of mind. If you notice that you’re feeling irritable and frustrated a lot as you pursue your goals, you may be pushing too hard and burning yourself out. This is especially true when you’re trying to FORCE results to happen. Step back and take some time off to recharge your batteries. Before long you’ll probably be itching to get back to it again.
Change your approach: You may be feeling bored or uninspired by the action steps you were once so certain would lead you to your goal – and now you’re wishing you’d never set the goal at all. But remember that you don’t have to stick with your original plan if it’s not working for you. Change it up! Go back over your plans and see if there is a better way to proceed. Engage your creative thinking and see if you can come up with alternate steps that you would enjoy more. The changes themselves don’t matter except for one thing: that they get you fired up and eager to proceed once again.
Build yourself up: It’s possible that your enthusiasm is dipping because self-
doubts have begun popping up in your mind, even if you’re not consciously aware of them. A good way to move past these limiting thoughts is to stimulate your confidence, inner strength and power. Think about the things you’ve done in the past that you were proud of, and imagine all that you can still accomplish. Imagine feeling satisfied and fulfilled with your life circumstances, being proud of who you are and all you’ve done (and will do yet). Affirm that you are much stronger than you usually think you are, and inspire yourself to push right through these feelings of lethargy and boredom.
Rekindle your excitement: When you first set your goals, you were fired up just by the idea of achieving them, and you can easily get that fire back by mentally revisiting what you want to accomplish. If you can’t seem to get a clear mental image of your desired outcome, write it down.
Put as much detail as you can into it, and be sure to infuse the description with feelings of excitement and happiness. Even better, write it in present tense – as if you’ve already achieved it! Express your feelings of joy and satisfaction for having this new experience in your life.
With a fitness goal, for example, you could write about how great you feel, how much more energy and focus you have, how your business is booming because you now have more energy and enthusiasm when you work, how you’re buying a brand new wardrobe to celebrate your achievement, and so on.
There are no right or wrong ways to do this exercise; simply write what you WANT to happen as a result of achieving your goal! Once you’ve got it all written down, be sure to keep it nearby and read it when you need a boost – several times a day, if necessary.
This exercise is powerful because you begin attuning your energetic signal to the outcome you want to achieve, rather than the obstacles that may be holding you back from it. And the more you focus on the thrilling outcome, the more you will be drawing forth the enthusiasm, the means, opportunities and resources to make it happen easily.
Taking New Year Resolutions to the Next Level
More than any specific problems you may encounter as you pursue your goals, understand that success is a simple matter of making conscious decisions that align with your desired outcome.
Anyone can decide to achieve a goal once – it’s your commitment to the ongoing process of growth and self-mastery that will determine your eventual success, or failure. When you think about it that way, goal achievement is really more of a system of gradual shifting from one state to another.
To be successful in your objectives, be willing to see New Year Resolutions (or any goals) as intentions to make the right decisions; decisions that will lead you to where you want to be, wherever you decide that is, now or in the future.
By doing so, you’ll quickly realize that there is no “success or failure.” There are only choices that support your goals or detract from them. This is very good news because it means that it’s never too late to get back on track! Even if you’ve spent years making “bad choices” (those that don’t support your ultimate goals), you can easily begin making “good choices” that DO support your goals – right now!
A big part of this process involves getting your thoughts in alignment with the outcome you desire. But it’s not just about “positive thinking”. Transforming your thoughts from negative to positive is certainly a great start, but it’s not going to be enough to transform your entire life. To do that you need to undergo an inner shift that will alter the signal you are sending to the universe day by day.
This may sound complicated, and it can be if you don’t have the right tools to help you along. That’s where The Dawson Method can help. I have successfully helped thousands of people transform their lives with my breakthrough technique – you might call it a makeover for your brain, but I call it “Imprintology”. Imprintology is a process of “imprinting” a success mind-set onto your own mind and overriding any limiting beliefs and concepts you may already have there – the very same limiting beliefs that have been holding you back for most of your life.
Best of all, this process can enhance your ability to achieve ANY goal, whether it’s related to money, business, health and wellness, relationships, personal fulfillment, inner peace, or anything else that’s important to you.
No matter how many times you have “failed” to achieve your New Year Resolutions before, they are still within your grasp! Getting the Law of Attraction to work for you can make the difference this time around, and you can achieve more in 2010 than you have in ALL the years you’ve been setting New Year Resolutions.
I have several Dawson Method products that can help you and your loved ones to achieve your goals for the New Year.
Want to learn more? Join me at Hidden Secret Hypnosis…
Wishing you immense success in all you do,
Val Dawson, MSW, CHt,Founder of The Dawson Method
Valerie Dawson is a board certified counselor and hypnotherapist with over 18 years experience.
With these Guided Visualizations you will tap into your powerful subconscious mind, simply by listening to a 15 minute audio. This will unlock your creative power to attract what you desire – so easily that it seems like magic!
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