Nearly half of Americans will make resolutions to change a behavior this year and almost all of them fail. According to US News and World Report, 80 percent of New Years resolutions will be mere memories by February. If that sounds familiar, you might want to examine the mindset you're bringing to the New Year's resolution table.
Resolutions fail because they're usually about a behavior which is always the end result of a thought process. To permanently eliminate a behavior, we have to first change the way we think.
For example, you have an addiction you want to end: say you're hooked on cigarettes and your New Year's resolution is that you want to stop. If your smoking is a coping or control mechanism for a mindset of depression or anxiety, it's going to be near impossible to eliminate the habit. On the other hand, if you resolve to deal with the depression or the anxiety that is the cause of the addiction, it's going to be much easier to quit.
The key to an effective New Year's resolution is not to make it about a behavior, but rather about the cause of the behavior, which is always rooted in mindset. So this year, instead of resolving to change something you're doing, resolve to change the way you think first. Then the behavior that results from the thinking will change accordingly.
