By Shannon Paul & Jo Hendrix

City Beat Magazine - Mind.Body.Spirit Column

How to make it to the finish line when you start to lose your focus

One-third of people making New Year’s resolutions choose weight loss and health as their primary goal. A study by John C. Norcross, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Scranton, suggests that 15 percent of those people aim to start a new exercise program. Yet, come March those same people are nowhere to be found at the gym or a fitness class. What happens to the human mind when we lose our focus and drive to finish?

As the New Year hits we are extremely motivated to start our resolutions. Maybe we start a new exercise program or start writing a book that we always say we will do. We start our resolution; we see change and progress, we begin getting closer to our goal of losing 10 pounds, building muscle, writing a couple of chapters in our book and get excited to continue on. Then as if we have no control over our mind, something changes.

We start to doubt that we can maintain this type of lifestyle. We judge and sabotage ourselves by saying, “I’m just going to gain this weight back anyway, so why try so hard” or “No one will read my book, why bother writing it.” We stop putting effort towards our resolution and pick up our old habits again. Sound familiar?

We as human thinkers tend to judge our goals and ourselves, which leads us into a cycle of starting something new and never finishing it. Judgments will get us nowhere; love, compassion and acceptance will get us everywhere.

When we judge ourselves we are telling ourselves limiting beliefs. We may say things like, “It is too hard to keep up this exercise and eating routine” or “This type of book has already been written, why bother finishing it anyway.” If these sound familiar, congrats, you are human! Now that you can identify that you have a human brain, let’s move forward.

To get through this space lets figure out what our limiting belief is; we will use “It is too hard to keep up this exercise and eating routine.” First, become aware that you have been working towards your goal for the past day, week, month etc. Instead of judging, see if you can remember the first time you ever said a limiting belief to yourself and instead try the following: 

Tell yourself that it is okay that you didn’t keep up with your goal last time.
2. Forgive yourself for not completing the goal, and understand that this time will not be like the last time.
3. Look at that limiting belief in your current goal, and instead give yourself credit for completing each day, week or month’s work towards your goal.

Realize that each day you stay on this consistent path, progress is made. Small steps every day are what bring about success.

Surrounding your judgment and limiting belief with this new awareness will help you stay focused on your goal and give you the courage and strength to see it through to completion (or at least until June) and hopefully beyond.