Editorial: Ten steps to turn your New Year’s resolutions into success stories!

By Christian Wasinger, CHt

Every year, approximately 45 percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions. A staggering 25 percent don’t make it past the first week, and only about eight percent stay on course and achieve their resolutions.

After years of failing to succeed, our subconscious mind has learned to associate negative feelings with New Year’s resolutions, such as disappointment, failure, and anger.

Here are 10 steps to shift the outcome and make the road to achieving your New Year’s resolutions both smooth and swift.

1. Give your New Year’s resolutions a name change.

Words generate feelings. Some cause us to feel happy, others sad, and some leave us in a neutral state. The words “New Year’s resolutions” may awaken negative feelings. Replace the words “New Year’s resolutions” with “future accomplishments,” which leaves you feeling more positive.

2. State your goals as positives.

When setting your goals, state them as positives. If I ask you not to think of an apple, your mind will immediately think of an apple and all your associations with them. Rather than stating, “I no longer want to be broke,” say, “I manage my money well, and pay all my bills on time.” Being in a positive mental and emotional state, you are far more likely to achieve your goals.

3. Be specific.

If you want a taxi driver to drop you off at a specific destination, you must be clear, otherwise you won’t get there. The same goes for your goals. So long as you have a clear destination, you will eventually get there, even if there are detours and obstacles along the way.

4. Make your goals measurable and give them a deadline. 

Your goals and the progress you make must be measurable, so you know whether or not you are getting closer to reaching them. Have a deadline, because goals without a deadline are only dreams.

5. Be realistic, flexible, and break down your big goals into smaller goals.

It may not be realistic to go to the gym every single day, if you haven’t exercised once in 2014? Perhaps commit to exercising three times a week. If you miss a day, don’t give up. Make up for it with an extra workout the next week.

If losing 100 pounds in 2015 feels overwhelming, focus on losing two pounds a week. You still end up with the same result, but the goal feels more manageable.

6. Keep your goals in front of you daily.

Place your goals where you will be reminded of them daily. Place a sticky note on the dashboard of your car, or a vision board in your office. Read them after waking up and before you go to sleep. Falling asleep with the visuals and feelings of having achieved your goals programs your subconscious mind to accomplish them.

7. Take action and have faith.

Setting “future accomplishments,” and affirming them daily won’t “attract” them magically into your life. The last six letters in the word attraction spell “action.” To achieve them, you must map out a plan, and focus on one step at a time. When driving to L.A. from San Diego, you must first get to Carlsbad, then Irvine, and so on northward before reaching LA. Take that very first step, and have faith that the next step will be revealed.

8. Keep at it, even if you don’t succeed at first.

There really is no failure. It may have taken you multiple attempts, but you achieved every past goal that was important to you, because you persevered. Those you didn’t attain either were not important enough to you, or were no longer important because your situation or desires changed.

When it appears you are experiencing failure, change and adjust some aspect of your approach. Everything will work out in the end. If it hasn’t yet, then it’s not the end.

9. Be accountable. 

Have an accountability partner, or use smartphone apps, and computer programs to help you stay on track. We are less likely to let others down than ourselves. Share your goal only with people who are supportive of you.

10. Are you getting closer to your goal?

Always ask yourself if what you are doing is getting you closer or farther away from accomplishing your goal. Don’t waste time, money, or energy on anything that is not getting you closer to your final destination.

Finally, be patient with yourself and be realistic. Start by implementing one of the above steps at a time, until you have reached your goals.

—Christian Wasinger, CHt, is a bestselling author, neuro-linguistic programming trainer, and clinical hypnotherapist with an office in Mission Valley, San Diego. To learn more about him, visit theNLPexpert.com.

Letter to the editor

Dear Editor:

Congress has passed a trillion dollar omnibus spending bill that includes giving trustees of multi-employer pension plans the ability to cut pensions earned by 1.5 million workers and retirees. Many pensions will be cut by up to 50 percent to retirees who are in no position to make up for the monthly short-falls they will be sorely missing in order to be financial secure.

On behalf of the workers and retirees who read your newspaper, I feel you should publish an editorial telling members of Congress they should hold hearings early in the new Congress to explore better solutions other than cutting pension benefits.

Reportedly, Congress acted out of concern about the $42.4 billion that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC) says it is short for needed payouts if at-risk multi-employer pension plans failed. Does this remedy open the door for the PBGC and single-employer pension plan sponsors to seek the same relief?

Congress did not stipulate that this change applied to multi-employer plans only. It enacted the law in a way that it changed Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) [of 1974] to permit the change to some underfunded multi-employer plans but did not add the word “only.” Therefore, Congress did not preclude underfunded single-employer plans from being de-risked by allowing plan sponsors to cut retiree pension benefits in the future!

Tell Congress it needs to amend the provision to protect single-employer pension plan retirees.

—Irene Patton, via email