I doubt anyone will find this startling.  New Year’s resolutions are notorious for being easy to proclaim and difficult to keep. Creating changes in our own lives is always more complex and complicated than we imagined.  We are often unknowingly unprepared for the task.  Besides, no law says you have to keep your resolution. On the other hand, there is no law that says you can’t start over. 

Personally, I stopped making New Year’s resolutions.  As I wrote last year in my blog, “The New Year’s Resolution Revolution“, my resolutions would become tangled up with my Christmas lights.  I regarded them as a holiday tradition; neglecting to confer them with any true value or measure of personal significance.  For me, adhering to the international but arbitrarily assigned starting date of January 1^st was distracting.

This is not to say that resolutions are obstacles to making a change in your life.  On the contrary, they are an excellent if not vital tool for navigating your way through the change process.  If you made a New Year’s resolution that has slipped or is slipping away from you, take a moment to reassess.  Ask yourself if making the change you thought you resolved to make still appeals to you.  If any part of you says “yes”, it is because you harbor a real desire to do it. So, ignore the calendar and use that aspiration as your new starting point.

However, take a moment to assess where things fell apart or never came together the first time out.  Identify the soft spots.  Otherwise, you risk repeating what you did before and wind up with the same unsuccessful results.  Besides, you to avoid initiating or reinforcing negative behavioral patterns.  They are such a waste of time and energy.   What is important now is for you to direct your attention and intention toward creating a brand new beginning and achieving a fulfilling outcome.

Making a change in your life requires you to engage in an ongoing process of thinking and taking action.  If you are, as I was, under the assumption that making a resolution is the first step of the process, let go of that thought.  You cannot put the cart before the horse and expect to get anywhere.  Your resolution has to be a declaration of an action you decided to take in order to affect a specific change in your life.  It is not something you can just whip up. It is a contemplative action.  It requires some soul searching.  An epiphany would be even better.

Be certain your resolution has real meaning.  At a minimum, it has to pertain to a change you deem is in your best interests to make.  Preferably, it is a change you are passionate if not enthusiastic about making.  Ideally, you comprehend this change as a means of exercising more control over your life.  Unless your change fits into one of these categories, you will never be able to develop or sustain the motivation and commitment necessary to achieve your desired change. 

The more meaning you attach to your resolution, the more likely you will keep it.  Meaning expands your focus, enabling you to view the change you want to make as an instrument of self-control. This intensified perspective promotes a deeper appreciation of the importance or consequences of your own thoughts and behaviors.  It raises the stakes. You are definitely less likely to break your resolution.  Instead, your fortitude feeds your own sense of motivation and commitment.  A perpetual cycle begins that inspires you to keep moving forward and creates and automatic lifeline that rescues you from the rough patches that you are sure to encounter.

In addition to establishing a meaning, your resolution has to set forth the purpose of the change you want to make.  This is where you flip your focus around and zoom in on the primary goal you hope to achieve.  I use the term “primary” because the change process actually requires you make several changes, which means making supplement goals.  Focus in on the details of your goals until you can with all honesty, certainty and clarity that they are reasonable, realistic, measurable, and can be broken down into manageable steps — baby goals!

The combination of all your goals is what constitutes a plan of action, another requirement of the change process.  However, if the primary goal is off, it will skew all the others, and you will never develop a viable plan.  Any action you take will yield a mistake or chaos, definitely not a desirable change.  Without any plan, the meaning or purpose of your resolution becomes irrational, irresponsible or superficial.  There is no source of motivation of commitment – no reason to keep going.  Any efforts to change will be frustrating or void. Your resolution will be nothing more than an inconsequential or exasperating thought that you push, wish, or let fade away. 

If you want to begin again to make a change in your life, formulating a resolution is a way to catalyze your thoughts and action.  Take the task seriously and put your heart and soul into it. The care and attention you devote to crafting your resolution correlate directly with your chances of success.  Besides, making a significant change in your life can take anywhere from six weeks to six months – or more—to achieve.  A resolution can sure come in handy.

Tricia Ferrone, Capital LifeWorks, http://www.capitallifeworks.com

In an attempt to keep things simple, I told her I help people finding ways to manage their lives.  For instance, I help people develop a comfortable work-life balance.  Right then, she interjected and vehemently stated that it would be impossible for her to have a work-life balance. Her job was too important and required too much of her time.

My response to her was that she already had a work-life balance.  Everyone who works and has a life has one. The question is whether a person is comfortable with her work-life balance and, if not, what might she do to achieve a better fit?  The more comfortable the balance, the less resistance a person experiences in her life.  It cuts down on the struggle. 

She then volunteered to tell me she thought having a work-life balance meant spending half of her time/energy at work and the other half on her personal life.  I might have been surprised to hear that had I not read so many coaching blogs and learned that a number of people share her definition of work-life balance.  

I told her there were no ratio requirements.  I also explained that, in this respect, the word “balance” did not mean equal in portion. It was a matter of proportioning your time and energy in accordance with your values and priorities.  You create a lifestyle that is in balance with, and actually a reflection of, what you feel is important in life and what you need and want out of life.

For a few seconds, she scrunched her face into a contemplative expression.  Then she said she didn’t believe it was possible to just create a lifestyle because “life comes with obstacles”.  I told her she was right.  Knowing what you want doesn’t mean you will automatically get it.  More often than not, a person has to work at achieving their desired work-life balance. It’s a process requiring patience, persistence and, most importantly, self-awareness.  Still, it is a fundamental part of your lifestyle.

My words were provoking more scrunching. I decided to provide an example of what I was trying to convey.  I told her about a recent client of mine who had been experiencing conflict in her life. My client was a seasoned, talented, high-salaried professional who was feeling gravely anxious and frustrated. It was obvious that she had a work-life imbalance and that an adjustment was in order, but it had to be the right adjustment.

When we started working together, my client was somewhat aware of what she did not want in her life, and completely unaware of what she did want. Without being able to identify her true values and priorities, there was no meaningfully connection between them and her lifestyle. The basis for establishing a comfortable work-life balance did not exist. 

We needed to work on her self-awareness, and she needed to start at the very beginning. Dutifully, she went back to the basics, which meant mindfully contemplating the material and non-material aspects of life. This is important and necessary work and one of the greatest self-awareness tasks a person can undertake. However, for anyone who has become disconnected to, or who needs to determine, his or her true values and priorities it is an essential exercise.

Very soon, my client was able to make sense of her conflict.  She had spent years working long days and giving herself to her job in order to prove herself and climb the corporate ladder.  During which time she developed some serious work habits.  At some point, her core values and priorities had shifted. However, it was not until she went through her self-awareness exercise that she realized she no longer needed to climb the ladder; prove herself to anyone; or work crazy hours.

She devoted herself to breaking her old work habits, and became aware of opportunities and options for re-adjusting her work-life ratio.  All of which took patience (with herself), persistence, and continual exercises in developing self-awareness.  Making these types of lifestyle changes is not something you accomplish overnight. Doing so requires you  change your thinking and behavior – which are habitual.  Breaking a habit is a process that fuses difficulties, false starts and stops, and victories. It takes time to develop a new “comfortable” zone.

As a footnote, I mentioned that different people have different circumstances and situations in their lives, but the formula for attaining balance was the same.  For example, I worked with a client who needed to find new a new job, which was definitely a priority in his life. Unfortunately, he had gotten into the habit of focusing more on what he could not do than what he could do. As a result, he was not spending nearly enough time and energy on meeting his priority, and he didn’t realize how he was contributing to his problem until he started to develop his self-awareness.  Only then was he able to re-focus his time and energy and take truly proactive steps towards getting a job.  Once he got moving, it was not long before he was successful. 

By now, the woman I was speaking with was staring intently at me.  I reminded her of what she had said earlier in our conversation that her job “required too much of her time”.  I asked, “Did you really mean that literally?  Are you cool with that?”  She rolled her eyes and informed me that she “wasn’t into that self-awareness stuff”.  She seemed uncomfortable.  I changed the subject.

by Margie Warrell ( McGraw Hill, 2009).

Margie Warrell, an internationally known and highly respected executive and life coach, speaker and writer, has gifted us all with this wonderful book that is both deeply enlightening and amazingly inspiring.  It is a “ must read” for anyone who wants to live life out loud.

http://www.eightprinciples.com

How It Begins

A stress habit starts as a conscious reaction to some outside stimulus.  For example, the stress you feel while you are stuck in traffic when on your way to an important meeting. While you sit in your car and fume, your brain is busy tagging that experience as a stressor and establishing an associated memory in which it equates traffic with stress.  Then, whenever you are caught in traffic (even if you are not in a hurry), your brain recalls the associated memory and you register a stress response.

Unless you aware this is happening, and unless you tell your brain to stop, the process will repeat.  On each repetition, it finds a shorter route through your brain circuitry, allowing it to occur faster each time.   Within a short while, the process has transformed your original conscious stress reaction into an automatic unconscious reaction — and you have yourself a stress habit.  Continuing with our example, this is why you might stress out so easily whenever you sit in traffic, or get stressed just thinking about traffic.

Does Any of This Sound Familiar?
The type of people most likely to develop stress habits fall into two basic groups. Let us refer to them as Group A, the people who seem to feed off stress; and Group B, the people who seem to fall victim to it.  Each group has a specific set of habits, although it is possible for a person to exhibit symptoms of both groups.

The stress habits of the people in Group A include believing they work best when under pressure or in a crisis mode; being impatient; disliking situations in which they are not in control; and becoming easily annoyed by situations other people usually take in stride.  They will often talk about how busy they are and yet they will seldom turn down an opportunity to take on more work or responsibility.  However, their eagerness does not necessarily result in positive outcomes.

The stress habits of people in Group B include using stress as a way of compensating for feelings of fear or inadequacy; becoming easily distressed or overwhelmed; being   reluctant to initiate solutions to their problems; and having a tendency to employ unhealthy coping strategies, such as over-eating or self-medicating, on a regular basis.  They also develop mindsets that become increasingly constrictive, making them prone to focus on obstacles or difficulties as opposed to opportunities and benefits.

Such a Bad Habit
As with most habits, the longer you have a stress habit it the harder it is to break and the worse it becomes.  As your stress level increases, so does the threat it poses to your physical health and well-being.  A high stress level also adversely affects on your emotional and behavioral functioning.  It diverts your attention, skews your perspective, restricts your thinking, and promotes regressive, passive aggressive, or avoidance behaviors.

You can never derive any real benefit from a stress habit since both its short-term and long-term effects are either self-destructive or self-defeating.  Nothing good can come from relinquishing your self-control over to the effects of stress or making stress a staple of your life.

But Here is a Good Idea
It is very difficult to notice when your brain initiates a stress habit.  However, now, you at least know what signs to look for so you can tell your brain to stop! If you have a stress habit, I urge you to get the help you need to get rid of it. Think about how foolish it is to have this habit and how it is actually making you miserable.  Stop being your own worst enemy!  Besides, with all the stress that exists in our environment or naturally occurs in your life, why in the world would you want any more?

Our First Reaction

                Uncertainty is the immediate psychological response every one of us experiences when confronted by any type of change. Although an individual’s personality, perspective, and self-esteem all play a role in how that person deals with change, even the strongest and most resilient of us are vulnerable to the sense of uncertainty it incites in us. This is because every instance or type of change indicates that some element of life as we knew it is over.  We know that things will never be the same, but we do not know how this change will affect our lives and influence our future. Our uncertainty starts to provoke feelings of confusion, angst and self-doubt, but uncertainty alone will not derail the transformation process.  It is when we fail to examine and come to terms with our uncertainty that it can quickly manifest into fear, and that is when the wheels start to come off the bus.

What Are We Thinking

                Once fear intertwines with change, it does not take long for a downward spiral to occur. We start to focus only on our fear and we fail to focus on the challenge that change is presenting us: namely, whether or not we will use it as an opportunity to alter our own lives.  The fact is every situation of change provides us an opportunity to either add a new and positive element to our lives or eliminate an element that has been or will soon be working against us.  However, when we fail to address and eradicate our fear of change we practically guarantee that we will fail to meet its challenge.  Instead, we engage in self-defeating behaviors, such as avoidance strategies, and we become caught up in additional negative emotions, such as hurt and anger.  Our expectations about the future become impracticable, unfounded or exaggerated. Our stress levels soar and cause us to develop real, and sometimes serious, physical ailments. We feel hopeless and helpless, and we act accordingly. 

                Despite its origin, form, or nature, change is unavoidable and, one way or another, it is going to affect our lives. However, when we turn change into a fear factor, we not only fail its challenge, we torpedo the entire transformation process. We refuse to acknowledge the change, and we evade it instead of embracing it.  We begin to dwell so much on the past that we mentally paralyze ourselves. By this time, there is no way we can incorporate the change into our lives because we are incapable of implementing the purposeful steps needed to do so.  As a result, we miss any and every opportunity to use the change to our benefit.  Instead, we fall victim to change and the most we can do now is hope for the best.  Good luck with that.                 

                Change comes in many forms. It can be anticipated or unexpected, initiated by an outside source, or we can initiate change ourselves.  The ironic thing about change is that it is a constant part of life, but we still manage to struggle with it. At best, every one of us has an extremely limited, if any, ability to control change. What we all do have, however, is the complete ability to control our emotions and our behaviors when confronted by change. Being able to express openly your feelings and concerns about change, and finding a means of support for working through the transition process, is the best way to ensure that you will meet the challenge, seize the opportunity, and use change as a way to enhance your life.

If resolutions are supposed to be about making some kind of change in your life, then mine were the “fruitcake” of change — a holiday tradition that is not taken seriously and easily discarded. For me, once the holidays were no longer a priority, neither were my resolutions. Like holiday decorations that had lost their appeal, I put — or threw – my resolutions away. Soon – very soon – I would forget about them until the next holiday season rolled around and I engaged in the traditional cycle once again.

The cycle always began with my vowing to make a lifestyle change by either starting or stopping some behavior on January 1. If I resolved to stop doing something (like over-eating or smoking), chances are I would seriously indulge — or over indulge — in that behavior right up to 11:59pm, December 31. (This only made actually stopping the behavior extremely difficult.) If I resolved to begin something (like exercising regularly) on January 1, chances are I would keep finding reasons to re-schedule the kick-off date. (It’s too cold, it’s too late, I’m too tired, etc.) My pitiful self-deceptions and ridiculous excuses were actually a necessary part of the traditional cycle.

As each day of the New Year went by, the holiday season would drift further and further away. Likewise, I would traditionally drift further and further away from my resolutions and the changes I thought about making in my life. Instead of serving as a means to an end, my resolutions had become nothing more than temporary, if not momentary ideas. The traditional cycle would be complete when nothing – and I mean nothing – changed. That is until one year when I finally had an epiphany. Hallelujah!

I realized that, as a vehicle for affecting change in my life, my New Year’s resolutions were powerless from the start. The problem was my tendency to treat declaring a resolution as a goal in and of itself – another holiday tradition, like decorating my home, that I needed to check off my “to do” list. As a result, I was neglecting to focus on or assign any true and separate value to the real goal – the actual lifestyle change — my resolution was supposed to help me achieve. Eventually, it became obvious to me that making a real change in my life would require a different approach, and so I began my personal revolution.

From then on, instead of coming up with what were for me meaningless New Year’s resolutions, I focused on the changes I really wanted to make in my life. Instead of spotlighting a specific, arbitrary stop/start date, like January 1, I concentrated on developing a reasonable plan for implementing real change in my life. Instead of having the whole thing just drift away, I stayed motivated and committed to my goals by reminding myself how my lifestyle changes would allow me to exercise greater control over my life. As a result, instead of repeating an inconsequential holiday tradition, my revolution led to amazing accomplishments.

If, like me, you find New Year’s resolutions have become non-starters for implementing any real change in your life, please don’t be shy about sharing your thoughts and stories here. However, you might also consider starting your own personal revolution sometime this year. Skip the resolution stuff but consider what it is you really want to achieve. Then, go deep into your heart and soul and truly connect with the changes you want to make your life in 2010.

I wish you all a Happy New Year filled with amazing accomplishments. Viva la revolution!

Tricia Ferrone
Capital LifeWorks, http://capitallifeworks.com/