Happy New Year - As If!
“As the year comes to an end, don’t look back on
yesterday’s disappointments. Look ahead to God’s promise yet to unfold.”
Buky Ojelabi
Buky Ojelabi
New
Year’s Eve is upon us. Dare I count the
years that it was a feeding frenzy up until the magical clock strikes twelve
moment of bursting into a new diet that was sure to bring forth the fit slender
body I so yearned for and all my problems would be solved. You know the drill – the chowing down on all
of the forbidden goodness of Christmas goodie leftovers for this sugar infused
last supper is never to be experienced again.
Self promises solidify that this time it really counts because, after
all, the beginning of a brand new year is the holy grail symbol of a brand new
you. Sadly, by January 3rd it’s
all blown and plans for yet another grandiose new beginning is premeditated. The only thing to come out of this diet dance
was every time I didn’t show up for me I lost trust in myself. If you can’t trust yourself you’re doomed. I am now approaching this New Year's midnight moment completely differently. This is the
first year I’m not plotting my last meal and am actually thinking about
something other than a number on the scale.
The question I ponder this week is what are my resolutions for the new
year and how can I make sure they stick?
Statistics
show that 42% of people make resolutions at the new year but only 9% keep
them. That means only 9 out of 100
people actually follow through on their goals and self promises. It's time to get real! It’s time we say good-bye to letting
ourselves down! It’s time we have our
own back! Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “The
only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.” Who do you want to be? What do you really
want? More importantly, how do you want to feel? We often want something because of how we
think it will make us feel. If we fail
to focus on that, we’ll get that thing, that job, that number on the scale and
we’ll realize that nothing else changed and we are still feeling the same way, still yearning
for something more. I realized this is true from the last time I lost a significant amount of weight. Something was still missing because I didn’t
work on the inside. This year my
approach to resolution time is to think differently.
We need
to create what we want but we also need to feel the way we want to feel. If you are scared, insecure and overweight,
you can lose weight only to become a thin, scared and insecure person who will sabotage
all progress. Perhaps what you really want is to
feel confident, healthy and energetic. If
you want to reduce debt and build your savings, perhaps what you really want is
to feel safe and secure. I’ve learned
that if I don’t change the way I feel, when I get to what I think the goal
is, I won’t feel any different. Then what?
This year I’m trying something new.
I am focusing on what it is I want to feel and make the conscious choice
to feel that way now. Outside things don’t
create our feelings, it’s our thoughts about them that do. When you make the choice to feel better now,
you’ll make better choices to create the life you want. Obtaining material things, saving money or
even losing weight cannot change our thoughts.
Only we can on. It’s an inside
job.
But how
do we do this? It’s not through positive
affirmations. Professor Peter Herman did
a study at Carleton University in Canada and found that making positive
affirmations about yourself, that you really don’t believe, doesn’t work and can actually
damage your self-esteem. The study also
revealed resolutions fail because of the cause and effect relationship. This happens when people think losing weight, exercising more or getting out of debt will change their life and when it doesn't they are catapulted back to old behaviors. A group of brain scientists,
Antonio Damasio, Joseph LeDoux and Stephen Hayes did a study using MRI’s and discovered
that a new way of thinking can change your habitual behavior. New neural pathways are literally formed when
you chose new thoughts about how you feel about something. This conscious
choice creates new brain waves which leads to new actions that can lead to
successfully accomplishing your goals.
This week instead of plotting my last supper of
the forbidden food groups I decided to take this new approach into the new year and
pretend that everything I want to happen already has. I’m choosing to feel the way I want to feel
and act as if I’ve already achieved my goals.
It does sort of feel like a “fake it till you make it” mentality but, to
be honest, it feels pretty good. Stepping into
faith is turning the saying “I’ll see it when I believe it” into the premise
behind Wayne Dyer’s book, “You’ll See it When You Believe it.” I realize that saying I have faith and truly
stepping out in faith are two different things.
I also realize that not stepping out in faith we hold ourselves back and
limit what is possible. It’s a choice to
live with strong faith in the things not seen, not proven and not a
guarantee. It’s time to tap into the
power of the possible. It's time to step into God's promise that if I do the work, He'll take care of the results. Wayne Dyer said,
“The more you see yourself as what you’d like to become, and act as if what you
want is already there, the more you’ll activate those forces that will
collaborate to transform your dream into reality.”
“How to make
anything happen…
Act as if it already has, and never look back."
Mike Dooley
Mike Dooley
Contemplating
the quest to create these resolutions I pretend it is already the end of this new
year upon us. What do I want to
celebrate this time next year? Who did I
become? What did I create? What did I experience? What do I feel? I pretend I’m already that person. My resolution is to be that person and act as
if all of these things already happened and choose to feel how I want to
feel. The action now is to make a plan
and do the things that this person will do.
All I have to do is show up and keep my promises to myself.
If I am
already that person who is thin and healthy then I eat healthy and go to the
gym because I feel confident, fit and secure in my own skin. If I am already that person who is a published
author then I make a plan to work on my book by scheduling a set time to write
each day and plan to complete a set number of pages each week because I feel
accomplished and I know I am helping to inspire others. If I am already that person who is… the sky
is the limit; all we need to do is dream.
Acting
as if is taking a step in faith. The
body will follow where the mind leads.
Kathy Delaney-Smith, the head women’s basketball coach at Harvard
University since 1982, used the power of “acting as if” to become one of the
most successful coaches in the past thirty years. She has more wins than any coach in Ivy
League history capturing 11 league titles and finishing in the top three in
standings for 14 straight years. Her
belief is that performance is at least 80% mental. She claims you act as if you are already the
champion you want to be. You act as if
practice is fun. You act as if when you
fall down it doesn’t hurt and you get right back up and into the game. She admits that when she was originally hired
as the local high school basketball coach, nearly 30 years ago, she had no
experience but acting as if she was a skilled coach they won game after
game.
She
also used the power of her mind and her thoughts to act as if she were healthy
and strong as she successfully battled through a life-threatening bout of
breast cancer. Her story, strength, and attitude are inspiring and courageous.
She feels that the human nervous system can’t tell the difference between a
real event and an imagined event. She
was determined to act as if she was a cancer survivor and she became one.
Reading about Kathy’s story this week caused
me to reflect on this concept of acting as if and the impact of truly believing
I have the power to create my own reality.
I’ve thought about this concept before but part of me would pretend to
act as if while hoping and waiting for things to get better while also secretly
worrying they wouldn’t. This New Year
it’s time for a new approach. We often
get exactly what we expect - which is a pretty powerful concept if we take time
to let it in and live with that awareness.
I’m no longer going to wait and see how things turn out or hope for
certain results. I’m acting as if I
already have everything within me and around me that I need to be successful,
happy and fulfilled.
You can’t hate your body thin the same way
you can’t make money from a place of fear.
If you choose to feel thin, healthy and confident you are less likely to
hit the drive thru at McDonalds. You are
more likely to take chances on opportunities when you are feeling abundant,
secure and confident. There’s something inside us that wants to make things
better which is why we want to make New Year’s Resolutions. The secret to feeling happy is progress. Knowing we’re changing and getting better is
what makes us happy. Vern McLellan said,
“What the New Year brings to you will depend a great deal on what you bring to
the new year.”
This new concept of acting “as if” is a game
changer for me in this new year. I have
to tell myself to forget all the reasons why this won’t work and believe the
one reason why it will. Choosing to feel
the way I want to feel with my resolutions and choosing to act as if they already
happened is a step in faith of the unseen and unknown. God is the only way to make it sincere and
not merely go through the motions. You
don’t have to look any further then Mark 10:27 when Jesus said, “With man this
is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God.”
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