For many years I found the whole concept of New Year resolutions rather annoying. Why should I be pestered and pressured into changing? That said, a New Year is a psychologically appealing time to make some kind of fresh start. However, by the end of week one, many people’s best intentions have already evaporated. Why is this so?
One of the big reasons is you didn’t want to change badly enough. People’s attitudes to their habits falls on a spectrum. On one extreme end of the spectrum is I like it and stuff you! Further along are the more passive “shoulder shruggers”, who know that their habit is not good for them but have an “oh well never mind” attitude. Their habit isn’t really getting in their way, so they are happy just to let it be there. Next along are the “guilt-trippers”, who feel bad about their habit, who beat themselves up over it, but remain hopelessly in its grip.
As a therapist I encounter all these attitudes every week, and I must sadly report that even with all my skills, none of them have that vital factor that they themselves must bring to my sessions with them. It is possessed only by those on the opposite extreme of the spectrum, the “had-enoughs”. The had-enoughs are completely and absolutely sick of their habit ruining their lives – it is stopping them doing what they want to do and being the person they wish to be. Only the had-enoughs have that vital raw material essential for any intervention of any kind to succeed: they have the will.
The will to succeed is not just a simple superficial whimsical wanting. Many people who say they want to change actually don’t want to change at all – what they actually want is to be someone they’re not, which of course I cannot do for them. You see, if you are an addict, the first thing you must accept is you’ll always be one. You have to accept the responsibility for managing your addiction, as it will never actually go away, it is fundamental to who you are. Others are consumed by fear. They enjoy their habit and cannot imagine their life without it. These people are simply not ready. The fear of what their habit is taking from them must be much greater than their fear of doing without it. It’s a simple question of forces – the strongest force will always triumph.
The will is a very fundamental primal force within you. It is very difficult indeed to break. You can force someone to do something fairly easily, but only for as long as you have a hold on them. As soon as your grip loosens they will wriggle out of doing it. To keep someone doing something, they themselves must want to do it. You see the will is the child of survival and identity. How you perceive the world around you determines how you see yourself and therefore what you must do in order to survive in this world. When I see clients, I have to work with want they want, not what I think would be best for them.
The greatest myth about hypnosis is that it is mind control. The reality is that you cannot bend someone’s will with hypnosis. If you could, the hypnotists would already be ruling the world, and I would be living in a chateau in Switzerland. Besides which, to change your will would effectively be to turn you into another person entirely – it would effectively mean the death of you and the birth of a robot. Some people actually want this, but the survival override instinct simply wouldn’t let you anyway.
For successful hypnotherapy then, I have to work with someone’s will, not against it. To access the deepest parts of someone else’s subconscious mind, to lead them into the deep trance that allows me to do that, the will of the client must permit me. If the client does not want to go where I’m leading, the threat warning is triggered, my suggestions are resisted, and both myself and the client are wasting our time.
So then, to be successful in keeping a New Year’s resolution, your will, not just a whimsical wanting, must be in the right place first. You must be absolutely sick of your habit, behaviour or thoughts ruining your life. But even then, some people need help. Some find that even with a burning desire and determination to change, something within them keeps sabotaging their efforts. They cannot figure out why they are still not changing when they really want to. In this instance, what is going on is subconscious override.
A deeply ingrained habit or behaviour is often, like the will, associated with the survival instinct, and imprinted within you when you were young. Placed in certain situations you don’t like, that childlike response is triggered, completely bypassing your conscious mind entirely – you just find yourself doing it. This is due to an obsolete survival instinct. The way we coped with things as children is often inappropriate and unhelpful when we are older, but no amount of logical reasoning will change a response that does not respond to logic. If you’re encountering this kind of issue, you need someone else to help you get access the areas of the mind you can’t reach.
It is in these sort of subconscious ingrained habits and behaviours that hypnotherapy is particularly effective. A skilled hypnotherapist can speak the language of the subconscious, which is all about feelings, emotions and pictures. In order to access the subconscious, you must enter into a trance. This is where the will comes in again. A trance is a deeply relaxed state of consciousness, and to be led into one, you must allow it to happen, and to allow it, you must want it. But a second quality is also required, you must trust the person trying to hypnotise you. Any hint of fear or disbelief causes resistance, which can make the process difficult or impossible.
Of course, it is largely down to me to demonstrate credibility, understanding and a more than a little gentleness and kindness in order to reassure clients that I know what I’m doing and can be trusted. Myself and the client must be trying to achieve the same thing and believe absolutely in each other. Small wonder then that I don’t get many clients who have selected me randomly from the Yellow Pages. People have in some way got to know a lot about me first, either from previous clients, personal contact or from reading my articles and podcasts, and they’ve often tried everything else first.
If you want your resolution to succeed this year, be honest with yourself: do you really have the will. If so, you really want change and you and not been successful before, then be honest enough to reach out and get some help. After all we all do need help sometimes, there’s no shame in it. I wish you a very happy prosperous and successful New Year, particular if you’re intending to make a change.
