Welcome to my blog on goal achievement.
Did you know that hypnosis can help you achieve your goals?
You probably already know that hypnosis can help people to stop smoking, lose weight and develop ways to combat stress and anxiety, but it can also be used in many ways to help achieve goals to do with creativity such as removing writer’s block and artwork, sports achievement and decision-making.
I’m Linda, from Awaken the Change. Today I want to discuss aspects of achieving goals that you may not have
thought about before and the ways hypnosis can help. So if you feel stuck, or have failed with your New Year’s resolutions keep reading!
Studies show that often around 80% of New Year’s resolutions fail by February.
Most New Year’s resolutions are about health, wellbeing and personal development. With the COVID pandemic spending more time with the family and getting a good work/life balance also seems more important.
My clients tell me that by the end of January they often struggle with New Year resolutions and find that they are losing the willpower to continue. There are many New Year’s resolutions and just as many reasons why people struggle. Maybe they decided to get fitter by going to the gym or they decided to finish that book that they started to write a long time ago but they don’t quite get there, or worse still they don’t start.
Yet, I also know that there are also some people who choose not to make New Year’s resolutions simply because they think they can’t stick to their goals. Maybe those people were disappointed and didn’t achieve past goals.
Reasons for failed New Year resolutions
There are three main reasons why people tell me that they fail to achieve their goals in the New Year.
- Personal and emotional reasons. For example, they feel too scared of success, they have poor motivation, they don’t believe in themselves, they lack confidence, they don’t think that they are not good enough, they try too hard, and they don’t focus on what they want enough. There is also a lack of personal reward. This results in too much thinking, worrying and feeling anxious or maybe even depression.
- Poor goal setting. For example, they can’t concentrate on making a plan because they are under lots of pressure, they struggle to organise themselves or set the goals at the right level for them and their financial, and time resources are reduced. It is often other people who are trying to set their goals for them. This results in feelings of being out of control, stress and anxiety.
- Going It alone. For example, going to the gym alone, not getting enough support with weight management, not telling others how it feels and not getting psychological help. This results in people thinking that they are different or they are a failure and they compare themselves which reinforces the feeling of not being good enough.
So failed New Year’s resolutions are complex.
I believe that it’s not that you can’t stick to your goals, rather it’s because you didn’t really want it or maybe you didn’t understand what you were letting yourself into or that you didn’t get the support you needed.
Yet goals are important because we all need to get that sense of achievement that comes with change and effort.
There is also learning that should be achieved if the outcome isn’t what was expected.
One way to start to address this problem is to focus first on the goal.
It’s all about focusing our minds and that’s where hypnosis can help.
What is a goal?
A goal is a process of effort that achieves the desired outcome.
It requires an intention to set the direction.
For example, if you kick a football into a goal you know what you are looking at, you know that you are using effort to kick and hopefully you focus enough to get the ball in the net. But just like sporting goals, there are different amounts of effort according to how you are feeling and the techniques you might use. Experience will often help, and football coaches can also assist. Occasionally things happen by chance.
Hypnotherapists can also help by providing suggestions to increase motivation, reduce barriers and build on that goal.
What is goal setting?
Goal setting is about setting the direction. According to Tony Robbins, goal setting is fundamental to success.
Most people in business know about planning and goal setting. In presentations, someone sells you the idea of success and what it will be like when you achieve the goal. They try to motivate you to focus on the achievement. Yet these goals may not equate with your values and beliefs or the time and effort you can afford.
I don’t think about goal setting in the way of listening to a sales pitch.
I think it’s about balancing the rewards with the number of costs and doing the right thing at the right time.
Goal setting should be about the barriers you will overcome, the time and sometimes money that you will need to provide but most of all I think it starts with the motivation or the intention to succeed.
Goals need to develop in bite-sized chunks.
You need the goal but you also need the path to get there. It starts with dreaming of the path you will take to get to that goal.
Studies show that developing a vision, planning, writing down your goals and setting limits is good.
However, you need the right mindset to start. Hypnosis can help.
So you must know your intention or what you want.
This is the start of the process which is often underestimated.
If you don’t really know what you want in life you might need to tap into your dreams or develop a vision for what you can achieve.
However, it does require information to be able to make choices about where, why, how and what you do.
This is why people often contemplate doing something because they are analysing if they can do it or can’t do it. This is the first part of the change cycle. They may also be gathering information at this time to support the desired outcome.
Hypnosis can help you by helping you to reduce any stress and tension and prepare you for change. Hypnotherapy can also help with boosting your motivation for change and reframing your thoughts so you reduce or remove the barriers to success.
You need information when deciding on a goal
Information gathering is important as it reduces risks and assists in developing the right choices.
What choices do you have when trying to achieve your goals?
You may feel that you have limited choices but many things can involve more than two choices.
Too many choices can be more of a problem as you get overwhelmed with information.
The best way to make choices is to take some time and learn to relax because stress and anxiety will make decision-making harder. Hypnosis helps you to relax your mind and your body.
So you need to make a decision
Decision-making involves reviewing the risks so you need to be focused on what you want to get there without too much risk.
It’s a bit like walking down a street and avoiding potholes or other barriers.
Hypnotherapists can help this stage of achieving your goals by offering relaxation sessions either in person, online or via audio recordings.
One reason why people fail to continue going to the gym is that they haven’t calculated the time to go to a gym, the time to practice and then shower and go home.
Another common reason for failure is competition between several things that you want to do at the same time. This means that it can be difficult to juggle competing goals.
Some people might not gather enough information in the goal-setting stage when they know that have a busy schedule.
The goal may even be too big.
So when decisions feel hard hypnotherapy can help you to hit your pause button, relax and focus on what you really want. This will help you to reorganise your thoughts and make easier decisions based on what you want. You might also decide to prioritise and weigh up the risks.
But you don’t need to do all this on your own.
Hypnotherapy can help you at each step in the process to achieve your goals. Here are some ways it can help
- Building your confidence and self-esteem
- Motivation
- Relaxation
- Decision-making
- Goal setting
- Stop smoking
- Weight management
- Sports achievement
- Reducing stress and anxiety
In summary, the theme of setting goals and New Year’s resolutions can be more successful if you understand what you want, you set goals and plan ahead and you get the support you need.
For a free initial consultation to discuss this further and find out how hypnosis could help you, please contact me.
