Use NLP to Create New Year's Resolutions That You Keep By Carl Buchheit At Isnare.com Ezine Articles

by Carl Buchheit, co-founder of NLP Marin, training director and lead facilitator.
Recorded and first published in 2009

Carl responds to questions about resolutions, and how they can be seen and used in a new way for effective personal change and growth.

Check out our previous Open Frame: “Why New Year’s Resolutions Don’t Work.”

Listen to the recording of the questions and answer session (3 min)

Note: The following transcript is edited for clarity.

Question:
So if resolutions don’t work, what do we do? How do we “re-solve”?

Carl:
It’s fairly simple to create a New Year’s re-solution that actually works so that we can re-solve something—so we can move into whatever activity or experience that is way more the truth of us than what we’re currently experiencing.

We make a picture in our mind’s eye of the future version of ourselves that is experiencing the result that we want accomplished. This is a basic step that in NLP we call creating a function strategy. A strategy is just a series of internal pictures and sounds and feelings that carries us automatically to the result that we want. The people who get up at 5:30 in the morning and go running in the dark and the rain generally are not doing that because they’re able to steel themselves or overcome something or because they have stronger self-discipline than the rest of us who can imagine running in the rain at 5:30 in the morning but never actually get up to do it. These people do it because it feels better to do it than to not do it. They’ve arranged to make contact with a good result in the future, with a positive future outcome that pulls them towards that future quite naturally, the way we’re pulled toward any experience that gives us a good feeling.

So the way to make a New Year’s resolution work is to arrange for it to feel better to keep the re-solution than to not keep it. And to do that all we have to do is create a picture of the result accomplished: the end result, not the process. We make a picture, not of waking up in the dark and looking for our running shoes and feeling cold and shivery, but rather of the end result. That’s what is important. We need to make a picture that is broad and colorful enough that it’s attractive to the more creature parts of us as well as the more human parts of us.*

If we can make that picture, then the next thing is to step into that future self… look through that future self’s eyes as if the result is right now… take a breath with that future self… and kind of cruise that future self around. Try that reality out. If that feels compelling and useful, then in your mind’s eye, turn and look backwards to the present self who is creating that choice. Now look backwards, not in triumph, but with affection and respect for the previous self who imagined the present future self doing the behavior so naturally.

The key always is to stay out of conflict. Rather than treating the present as something to be defeated, allow the present to support the future so that we can experience what we want.

*At NLP Marin, the “creature parts” are the older parts of the brain, shared with reptiles and mammals, which respond to strong physical sensations and images, especially those involving the breath. The “human parts” are the newer regions which care about values, meaning, and quality of life. Carl is making the point that these pictures need to appeal to both parts, especially the “creature parts,” to be the basis for successful re-solutions. – ed.

Here is another valuable article “Rethinking New Year's Resolutions”

Best, Carl

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