Owning Your Follow Through – How to Make Your Resolutions Stick

With the new year here, it’s probably hard (not) to think about your resolutions…things you want to change or make go away. It’s all around you. Every commercial. Others asking you about yours or telling you theirs. And why is this just so hard again? Or we start out strong only to drop the motivation in about a month or so?

Because facing what we need to change means facing our fears, and that is no small task. Fear is usually, at least to me, one of the root causes of behaviors that don’t serve us. It’s the reason we may say we want to pull the trigger on something and when we get to the edge of the diving board we back away and climb back down. It works against our desire for different, creating ambivalence we may not even be aware of, because it may be too embarrassing to admit!

Usually the fear is of not doing it perfectly or the fear we don’t deserve, nor can we trust the good for us. Although you may say “that’s crazy-why would I feel that?” if you dig deep enough you may find some of that. These are old messages that created core beliefs that drive the bus, even when we think we are the ones behind the wheel. We will live out what we believe! We will also most certainly sabotage our most earnest efforts to fulfill that prophecy.

Because there are payoffs. Secret, self-sabotaging payoffs that really don’t feel beneficial at all. Most of us deny these because it sounds so ludacris. These are really deep emotional attachments …old wounds that have yet to heal. We can be attached to control, poor treatment of us, failing, or being invisible. This is why you hear me talk so much about early grief work and why it’s so important.

So for example, if you grew up with a controlling parent, your core belief is you hate control and everything it symbolizes. Therefore, you become rebellious to have some sort if power and intently that is opposite of it. That’s great in that you may be spontaneous and creative. The downside is you probably also struggle with self-discipline, being organized and on time, and getting things done.

Or maybe you were told and shown that you didn’t deserve praise, accomplishment or good things. Maybe you would never be good enough or perfect enough to receive them. This attachment will show up in your life as settling for poor treatment in relationships, under-earning in your career and poor self-care. Check out this week’s podcast episode where we do a loving assessment of all of that.

So as you can see, in order to truly follow through and commit to your resolutions, you may need to first identify and confront any emotional attachments you still hold, and do the grief work around all of that. It’s also why you need loving accountability around you to help you recommit to yourself – every week if necessary.   Because you deserve good things! You deserve to make the changes and keep your commitments to yourself. If fact, by finally making that happen, you will ultimately heal those old wounds.

To me, THAT’S the kind of rebellion I like to see ?