"Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath.

Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever." -- Mark Twain

Hello Everyone! This is part of my annual anti-resolution newsletter. Hope you enjoy it and are already having a great new year.

New year's type resolutions have never worked because they are usually associated with something the person doesn't want [as opposed to what they do want] anyway, or with something that is wrong/missing in their life. Focusing on what you don't want or what is missing also has the tendency to produce more of that in your life.

The word resolution itself means to re-solve...again...again...again. Not a good word to describe permanent change. "New Year's" makes it sound as if change is not possible at other times only one day per year. How's that for a limiting belief?

Being overweight, for example, is a focus on what you don't want. Diets and the deprivation that go with them as well as exercise we'd rather not do... eeks... more of what we don't

One of the strange ways that people motivate themselves to lose weight is to feel bad about being fat and then use those feelings to fuel the program to lose weight. As soon as they lose some weight they are thrilled [good feelings] and thus lose the motivation to continue to lose weight which was based on bad feelings. Sounds crazy but that's how professional yo-yo dieters do it.

Think about how crazy that is: feel bad about what we don't want! The only thing stranger is to know that most people motivate themselves this way for everything! You have to feel bad to stay motivated and focus on what you don't want.

Far better to motivate yourself with good feelings about the things that really do matter to you. Good feelings across the board for everything.

How about a focus on gaining [what we want] instead of losing [what we don't want]? Gaining health/fitness instead of losing weight. Gaining all the perks vs. doing all that stuff you hate cuz you feel bad about it...

Remember I'm only a hypnotist and these are merely suggestions so...

Michael Dimas is a performance consultant, workshop leader, speaker, coach who will teach you how to empower your body, mind and spirit. He can be reached at michael@selfchangetechnologies.com or on the web at http://www.selfchangetechnologies.com

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