Making resolutions stick: Part 1 – THE PAUSE

Calling all well-intentioned resolution-breakers! This is the first in a mini 3-part series giving you the keys to making real resolutions you can stick to. Today, I look at what resolutions you SHOULD be making and how to identify them.

Before we get into this, can you do me a favour? Pause. Breathe in, breathe out.?

Feels good, doesn’t it?

For many of us, pausing is a luxury. Life is go-go-go! While we all understand the basic premise behind resolutions as a mode of self-improvement, we don’t often consider the thinking we should put in prior to making them.

Resolutions are a big deal, and they are also important to your own relationship with yourself. When you make them on a whim only to ultimately break them further down the line, an internal narrative forms (whether you’re aware of it or not):?

“I have no willpower.”?

“I never see things through.”?

“I feel like I’ll never change.”

These messages are incredibly harmful to your own self-belief and sense of resilience, and knowing what resolutions you should make can change all that. The right resolutions will unlock your potential – the wrong ones will leave you demoralised?

Of course, we all have numerous areas we’d like to improve in. Who wouldn’t like to be fitter, healthier, more motivated? But the best resolutions help you achieve more than generalised self-betterment, they act as a doorway to other improvements.?

The good news is that the right resolutions (and we’re not talking about an endless list here, 1-3 is usually about right) are buried within yourself. Unfortunately, as they subsist in the murky realm of the subconscious, they’re not necessarily within easy reach.

To access these resolutions you need to step forward, then step back. Give your subconscious something to chew on. Sit down and review where you are in life right now. Do this without judgement or self-criticism, but also with honesty. You might go about this in a number of ways: a pros and cons list of the last year, breaking your life into areas (“work, social & personal”), or visually organising your thoughts in a mind map .?

Whatever the case, do not, I repeat, do not, start to look for solutions while doing this. Instead, once completed, move on. This is where the next step comes in: finding pause. This time of year is busy and full of noise, but a quiet pause is essential to accessing those all important answers from within.?

Start working daily daydream breaks into your routine. Perhaps you’ll get out for a walk at lunchtime, or give the dishwasher a rest and work through the dishes by hand. Resist the temptation to fill your head up with radio, podcasts or music and instead let your mind truly wander.?

Pick a task monotonous enough that your mind can run free while doing it, but engaging enough that you’re not just sitting in silence twiddling your thumbs. This is not an opportunity to mull over the past or mentally list your worries, this is about child-like daydreaming, jumping from thought to thought like a frog jumps over lily pads.

I’ve already talked extensively about the power of daydreaming (and you can find more out about the theory & science behind it here ), but the really important thing is the results. You’ll soon find ideas, thoughts and reflections cropping up during your daydream sessions. Note these down.

When you have enough of these thoughts, it’s time to sit down and write your resolutions.?

You may feel that your daydream sessions have already produced defined resolutions, but even if you don’t, the important thing is to be guided by the insights you uncovered during these moments of pause. Look for recurring themes, and resonant feelings, and use these as the scaffolding which your resolutions can then be built around. Having done this, you can move forward in full confidence that your resolutions align with your true inner goals and desires.?

Look out for the next part of this series to find out how you can actually commit to seeing these resolutions through!

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I’m Chris Griffiths, CEO of OpenGenius (the creators of transformative mind mapping app, Ayoa ), best selling author of The Creative Thinking Handbook , and a leading keynote speaker . Find out more about me and what I do here.