Originally posted January 12, 2016

Are you finding it difficult to stick with the intentions or resolutions you made just over a week ago? Have you perhaps already once or twice considered breaking your resolve or have maybe even given up on it already?

Our motivations are the original rock that starts an avalanche. Motivations turn into goals. When events or people (especially when the person is our self) are perceived to interfere with reaching our goals, our emotions can easily cascade and flare into negativity.

How we approach even a momentary lack of resolve makes a difference. If we fall into a state of negative emotion our capabilities are reduced. Brainpower is being distracted away from taking clear and effective action. Indulging or wallowing in negativity for more than an instant is totally ineffective.

The very thing we need most when the negativity alarm goes off, perhaps when we are telling ourselves we’ll never be able to stick with our resolutions and achieve our goals, is to turn off the alarm and use all our brainpower constructively in service of our goals.

Believing that we have no control over negative emotions is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we refuse to give up control of our own habituated thought processes and choose instead to disarm the very thoughts working against us, eventually we will win and gain control of our emotions. Once we have that control back, we can get clear again on our motivations. The motivations-goals-emotions-ideas-actions system will then come into alignment to support us.

When we falter, it’s a good use of time and brain power to reconsider what our motivation was in making the resolution or setting the intention or goal. Peeling back another layer, why do we have this motivation? What are the goals that serve these motivations? What will help us to reach those goals? What impeded us in the moment when we slipped? Once we have a better understanding, what do these insights imply in terms of action decisions?

In the absence of protracted negativity — using it just as a useful alarm warning system — we are best able to get back on track, with the resolve to continue to strive toward the goals that we set.

[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”78%” background_color=”#cfdcf3″ border_width=”1″ border_color=”#565454″ inside_shadow=”false” ]Begin again today and take at least one step each day
toward carrying out your resolutions.[/dropshadowbox]

Best to all,
Bill

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