Theory of the Mind and Why New Year’s Resolutions Often Fail
By Katelyn Redwood, Certified Master Hypnotist
The beginning of a New Year is the most popular time for people to set goals to make changes in their lives. Maybe you’re setting a goal to meditate more, exercise regularly, eat better, stop smoking, be more optimistic - the list of possible positive changes you could make are endless, and most likely, you feel very motivated to make these changes when you first set out to do so.
Then why is it that resolutions often lose steam after a week or two? Many people blame themselves, thinking they just don’t have enough willpower. The truth is a bit more nuanced than that. Willpower is an incredibly weak force for everybody when compared to the subconscious mind. If you really want to make a long-lasting change, you have to start with the subconscious mind.
A Brief Overview of the Theory of the Mind
When we are born, the only part of the mind that is developed is our primitive area of the mind. This exists within the subconscious mind and is responsible for our automatic functioning like digestion, breathing, and even the fight/flight reflex. From when you are born until age 7-9, you are exclusively developing that subconscious area of the mind. As children, we have experiences, we identify what the experience is, and we create a positive, negative, or neutral association to it. If you had a beloved pet dog as a kid, you likely have a positive association with dogs. If you had a negative experience at the dentist as a kid, you likely have a negative association with the dentist. During our childhood, as the subconscious mind is making these identifications and associations, we are building something called a life script, which is how we believe the world to be. Everyone’s life script is different based on their own experiences.
At around age 7-9, we develop what is called a critical filter. Up until this point, children accept what is presented to them as real and true, and it is placed into their life script within the subconscious. But the critical filter acts as somewhat of a body guard. The critical filter catches incoming information and checks it against what we already believe in our subconscious to be true, then makes a decision whether or not the new information will become a part of our life script. For example, it is around this age when children start to question how Santa Claus could visit every house in one night, and if flying reindeer could really exist.
Finally, around this same age, we begin developing the conscious area of the mind. This is where we have things like logic, reasoning, decision-making skills, and willpower. When you are comparing two different insurance plans, you are using the conscious mind to determine the differences and make a logical choice. When you make a New Year’s resolution, you make that decision in the conscious mind, and depend on your willpower to execute it, which is also in the conscious mind. The trouble is, the conscious mind only makes up about 12% of your mind’s power. The other 88% is the subconscious area, and that critical filter is now working to protect whatever life script already exists in the subconscious. In a game of tug-of-war, the subconscious will win because it’s more powerful, plain and simple.
Why This Makes New Year’s Resolutions Difficult to Keep
If you’ve made a resolution to exercise 5 days a week, but the subconscious mind has never known you to be someone who exercises 5 days a week, then it is only a matter of time before you lose motivation. Homeostasis is arguably the most powerful force that dictates our behavior. There is subconscious motivation to stay the same because it’s what the subconscious associates with staying alive. If the subconscious hasn’t learned a new piece of life script that supports your goals, homeostasis will work to keep you exactly where you are.
How to Overcome our Subconscious Beliefs
If setting out to make a major change on your own, your best bet is to start small. S.J. Scott coined the term habit stacking, which means tying a new habit to an existing one. You can also focus on creating SMART goals. This means Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bound. It’s also helpful to go after a new goal with friend or use a tracking app, both strategies help you stay motivated and keep you accountable.
While these are good strategies to help you get started, hypnotherapy is an excellent way to create long-lasting change in a relatively quick period of time. When you are working with a qualified, reputable hypnotherapist, the therapist is able to disable your critical filter and make suggestions directly to your subconscious mind. When it comes to creating neural pathways, the mind doesn’t know the difference between a real and an imagined experience. Being in hypnosis is just a very effective state for learning because the critical filter is disabled and unable to reject new ideas. This means the suggestions made to the subconscious mind are better able to stick, so when you are out of hypnosis and using your conscious mind to make your conscious efforts toward your goal, you are no longer working against the force of homeostasis and the subconscious mind.
Hypnotherapy is not right for everyone or for every goal, and the expectation for working with a hypnotherapist should be committing to at least 6-8 sessions, but if you'd like to learn more about it, you can schedule a consultation with me and I can answer any questions you may have.