Welcome at Flow of Miracles

Dear People,

Every year people decide to make some good resolutions that they are intent to keep to better their lives that year. Most people fail or stop these in the third week of January. That makes me really sad so today I'm writing an article on how to keep your commitments.

Why make resolutions?
A lot of people stop making new year's resolutions, because they feel they never keep them. The sense of guilt, frustration of failure and many other negatives outweigh making them. While I can understand that sentiment, I'm a big fan of making resolutions at important times (New Years, Birthdays or Anniversaries)

Why? Making them helps us reflect on the past, what do we think we did wrong, what would we like to do differently, what do we think could be done better. It also makes us reflect on the future, what do we want to achieve, what is important for us to accomplish and what are we building towards. I feel in today's world we don't do enough reflection. Everybody is always busy busy busy - and we forget that being busy isn't a goal. It's also very satisfying to achieve something every year. It makes us feel in charge and accomplished and who wouldn't want that!

Why do our resolutions fail so often?
Simple, once you set a goal, it's not enough to have it. It's also not enough to try to find ways to accomplish it. The key is to understand why you haven't accomplished it yet or why you are currently behaving like you are. Once you know what is blocking you, you know what to change and how to naturally achieve your goal instead of fighting to achieve it every day of your life.

If you want to stop smoking, you need to know why you do it (boredom, insecurity, habit, stress etc.) and by changing those underlying reasons, you will naturally start to smoke less and less until you stop, because you no longer need it. If you want to lose weight, you need to know why you are now where you are (over eating, stress, emotional eating, not taking time to exercise, body image issues etc.) and you will naturally lose weight, because you stopped those behaviors. The list goes on and on.

Sadly, many people don't do this, so they try to quit smoking cold turkey and before they know it - they are back with a cigarette in their mouth. They try to lose weight - but they don't see any results as they haven't changed their behavior and underlying beliefs and they get frustrated and mad trying to do it through discipline and diets. So, if you want to keep your good intention and you feel you are already failing, I have the a small exercise for you to try. If this isn't enough to make the change - please don't hesitate to seek help!

Changing habits exercise

1. Choose a habit that you want to add into your life. If there is a habit you want to remove, choose something you want to add instead of that habit. For example, if you want to stop smoking, choose to make the goal of smoking xx cigarettes less.
2. Check what is blocking you from doing it now. Write down all the excuses that you make to yourself on why this isn't working. Keep this list close.
3. Write down an affirmation to support your new habit or on how it would feel to be free of your old habit. Affirm this regularly, preferably daily.
4. Whenever you need to do the new habit and you do the old one, don't be mad. Acknowledge that you are on the road to change. Check your excuses list, if it's on there, tag it so you know how often you use it, if it isn't on there, add it in.
5. Regularly look back on your excuses list and think on how can you eliminate that excuse. Is there something you need to do or something you need to let go of? For example, if you wrote down: "I'm too tired to exercise", what can you do to prioritize exercising? Are you doing too much work? Are you not sleeping enough? Do you need to do exercising at home instead of at the gym?
6. Every time you manage to do the new happy healthy habit, spend a minute or 2 feeling grateful, feeling positive, feeling happy with what you accomplished. Pat yourself on the back and feel the positivity this new habit gives you.
7. There will be a time when the new habit has become a regular happy occurrence. When you recognize you haven't tagged anything in your excuses list in a month or more, celebrate your new habit. 

And remember, if you want support or help with your resolutions, don't hesitate to make an appointment. Sometimes dealing with our excuses and underlying fears, sadness, anger and pain is too much for us. We don't have to do everything on our own!

Happy 2015,

Rianne