Top Tip for 2012!
It’s the end of the year and my advice to you is don’t make any New Year Resolutions!
Really, it s probably not a good time. You’re probably tired, you may have over eaten (No, surely not!), you may have over indulged in other ways, probably have a backlog of work waiting on your desk, and may be thinking about money, or lack thereof. And everyone is talking about New year resolutions. (Including me, sorry!)
So, Jane, I hear you cry, so if I’m not to join everyone else in making new year resolutions on 1st January which I struggle to keep and abandon half way through January to be plagued with guilt feelings until about mid February when I get back to normal…sort of, what should I do be doing?
Well, dear reader, far be it from me to tell you what to do but as a coach and writer of personal development courses for women (I can’t help myself) I do have a suggestion you might like to try.
Look Back in Kindness
Lots of good things will have happened to you in 2011. Take some time to recognise what those good things were. Generally these things aren’t just random; you probably did something to help those good things happen. However, we all have a tendency to focus on what went wrong and your head may be full of what didn’t go the way you wanted it to. But even when things seem to go wrong good can result.
Name Calling
Often at this time of the year we are calling ourselves names, (so fat, so feckless with money, so disorganised etc) and we set about resolving to ‘fix’ ourselves. We’re not kind to ourselves. We can start with an assumption that we need fixing.
We’re staring with a negative.
Which is not a good place to start. So accentuate the positive! Look back on your year in kindness and remember all the good that came out of 2011, all those minor triumphs. It may be the job interview that you got really great feed back from (whether you got the job or not), the new friend you made, the new skill you learned, or the wisdom about yourself you accrued (and it’s harder to accrue wisdom if nothing ever goes wrong in your life!)
And that’s it. That’s my tip for 2012. Go forth into 2012 tonight with a kindly view of 2011. Build on the good, let go of the bad. Take an appreciative inquiry view to life and be true to yourself!
And have a fabulous 2012, being you!
Photo Credit: Free Graphics
Mindfulness and Stress
Note to self – do more nothing! A resolution you just might keep…
The art (skill?) of meditation has been around for centuries; I was taught about it’s benefits during my professional training, and when I first worked in a pyschiatric hospitals over 27 years ago it was being used as something helpful with patients. I have also been lucky enough to work with several Buddhists and be taught some of the techniques by them to cope with a very stressful job. At one point we had a regular lunchtime meditation group going which was much more ‘nourishing’ than a trip to the hospital canteen!
Research and Mindfulness
One of the most recent studies on the correct use of mindfulness techniques and meditation has found that it reduces the recurrence of acute depression by up to 50%. That is pretty large claim but NICE (National Institute for Health & Clinical Evidence, a UK organisation which recommends treatments to the NHS) has advised GPs to ‘prescribe’ it and they don’t do that lightly. It can help with all sorts of things, like hypertension and chronic pain.
What is Mindfulness?
Jon Kabat-Zinn, is one of the founders of the mindfulness research movement. He defined mindfulness as:
“paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgementally”.
Other definitions include:
- an open and receptive attention to and awareness of what is occurring in the present moment
- an awareness that arises through intentionally attending in an open, accepting, and discerning way to whatever is arising in the present moment
- an attention that is receptive to the whole field of awareness and remains in an open state so that it can be directed to currently experienced sensations, thoughts, emotions, and memories
- stated simply, waking up from a life-on-automatic pilot
Do Nothing
Perhaps, at this point in the New Year rushing around filling your head with resolutions and a huge to do list is not the best thing you can be doing for yourself. Maybe you need to learn to do nothing. To simply just be for a while. There is an article here which will get you started on mindful mediation, but if you simply just sit up well, not slumped, close your eyes and focus on your breathing, and notice what is going on in your head for 5 minutes, you will be making a beginning.
And like anything worth having, it requires practise. If you can find 10 minutes every day for a week to try it out you should see some benefits. Go, on, do nothing!
If you meditate regularly I’d love to know what benefits it brings you!
Will You Keep Your New Year Resolutions?
It’s a good game, isn’t it – making massive resolutions in January so you can have guilt pangs about not sticking with them all through February! We’re probably all triumphs of hope over experience when it comes to making New Year resolutions.
Richard Wiseman, a UK psychologist, undertook some research into new year resolutions; his team tracked over 3,000 people attempting to do a whole range of things, like losing weight, using the gym, quitting smoking or drinking less.
Men and Women ARE Different
Perhaps unsurprisingly to all of us who have not managed to keep our resolutions going past Valentine’s Day, they concluded that New Year’s Eve is not a great time for making resolutions, and that you have more chance of success if you plan ahead for the changes you want to make.
They also found some interesting gender differences in achieving success. For men, the secret of success lies in setting specific goals and focusing on the rewards you will get if you achieve them. For women, the best way to keep a resolution is to tell people about it. At the start of the project 52% of the participants were confident of success but Dr Wiseman found that only 12% actually kept to their new year resolutions…
Men
Men were 22% more likely to succeed when they set goals for themselves, such as losing a pound a week rather than losing weight in general. In addition, men tended to succeed when they focused on rewards, such as losing weight to become more attractive to the opposite sex. “Men may be more likely to adopt a macho attitude and have unrealistic expectations, and so simple goal setting helps them achieve more,” said Dr. Wiseman.
Women
Women were more successful at keeping their resolutions when they told family and friends about their plans. They also responded better to encouragement not to give up if they snuck back to old habits temporarily – such as treating a chocolate binge as simply one minor setback and not a total failure. Telling others increased women’s chance of keeping resolutions by 10%, although sometimes they were reluctant to do so, losing a valuable source of support. (See this article about the importance of women’s friendships)
Most Likely to Succeed
The researchers found that the resolutions most likely to succeed were:
Enjoy life more, (32% of people stayed with it)
Improve your fitness (29%)
Lose weight (28%)
Be more organised (27%)
Quit or cut down drinking (25%)
Quit or cut down smoking (24%)
What’s your most frequently made resolution?
You can read more about this in The Luck Factor by Dr Richard Wiseman available from your local library, book shop, or via Amazon
Your Special Offer for January 2011! Be Fabulous All Year!
Dr Richard Wiseman has researched how likely we are to keep our New Year resolutions. Did you know that women can increase their chances of success by telling other people and gaining support and encouragement from them!
But he also found that women were often reluctant to ask for this help, cutting off this source of support. Which is understandable; we don’t always want to share our innermost thoughts and aspirations with people we see every day, it can feel too personal. Which is why working in total confidence with a professional can be so successful in helping you achieve your ambitions for 2011.
January Special Coaching Offer!
Throughout the first month of 2011 I am offering everyone who signs up for my coaching session a really great deal! If you sign up for my introductory package during January, you will receive an extra session of one hour’s coaching absolutely free! At an agreed time after our first call, (when we will have discussed strategies for your maximum success) I will contact you to see how you are progressing, and to inspire and motivate you to continue!
Make this year the one when you do achieve your resolutions and live life to the full! Sign up now!
No 3 – You Can Be Fabulous in 2011!
Even if you don’t make formal New Year resolutions you are probably still thinking about the year ahead and how you’d like it to be- if only because people like me keep talking at you about making resolutions!
It’s in the zeitgeist isn’t it? I’m not necessarily a great fan of having a set of formal resolutions you make in January to feel guilty about in February (!) but I do know that having a reasonably clear idea of where you want to be is half way to arriving there successfully! And the end of one year and the start of another is as good a time as any to reflect.
Dare to Dream
So, even if you are not in resolution making mode, this could still be a good exercise to try:
- Take 10 minutes to yourself, somewhere quiet
- Make yourself comfortable and relaxed
- Close your eyes and just notice how you are breathing
- Notice the rise and fall of each breath for about 10 breaths, this will probably gently slow your breathing
- Think yourself ahead 12 months, imagine you in 12 months time
- Ask yourself the following: What do I look like? What do I feel like? What have I done that has made me feel proud, or satisfied, or fulfilled?
What, if anything, do you need to do in the next 12 months to be fabulous in 2011!
No 1 You Can Be Fabulous in 2011!
Welcome to the first in a series of tips for being fabulous in 2011! You are probably already more fabulous than you realise (check this out); but as the old year draws to a close I suspect you may end up berating yourself for all the things you didn’t do in 2010, or didn’t do as well as as you wanted.
Review Your Year – Positively!
When I’m running my personal development courses for women there is one thing all are universally good at – listing their faults and telling me what they can’t do! Faced with the question, “tell me what your strengths are” the room falls uncharacteristically quiet…
And so when you review your year, with the aim of setting yourself some goals and resolutions for 2011 try and resist the urge to focus on what didn’t work. Don’t waste your energies on negative stuff. Instead, take five minutes now to think about what DID work well for you in 2010 and plan to do more of that!
List all your successes in 2010, small, large, and medium! Think across all areas of your life: love, home, friendships, hobbies, education, personal development and career. And remember, it’s your definition of success that counts!
Only when you have done that can you begin to think about your new year resolutions for 2011!
There is a longer exercise to try here.
