“It’s very common for people to start with a goal with excitement and determination, only to give up shortly after. This happens because their conscious desires do not match the subconscious beliefs within their Master Plans. In fact, willpower alone is not enough to sustain your motivation and progress when things get tough.” 

I was recently reading the book I Would But My Damn Mind Won’t Let Me by Jacqui Letran, for the Wellreads wellness book club I host (join us, it’s free!), and these lines stood out as a helpful framing of why we give up on goals we set for ourselves. I do recommend this book generally, but for now let’s focus on the insight contained here, applying it to helping you keep your New Year’s Resolutions– and any other goals you have for yourself.

Think of a resolution or goal you set for yourself. Write it down now. We’re going to quickly go over how to help you succeed with this resolution!

As Letran describes, our subconscious Master Plan is essentially our working model of what is true about ourselves and about how we engage with the world around us. It includes the thoughts that we accept as truth without question or analysis because they are what we’ve learned from experience, saving us mental energy so we can devote our critical thinking skills elsewhere.

But a resolution means making a change from the norm, and our subconscious resists that, because the norm is known and safe, and any change means introducing something new, to unknown effects. The subconscious cautions that new and different might mean dangerous, and so it discourages you from making changes.

Here, we have the problem Letran identified: our conscious desires (to make a change) do not match our subconscious beliefs (that that’s not who we are, that it is too risky to attempt because failing feels bad, so why chance it?).

Our conscious mind (our logical voice) can overcome this dilemma when things are going well, by reminding us of the reasons this change is good and isn’t scary. Our subconscious says “hard things feel bad,” but our willpower says “we can do hard things!”

In the early days of the New Year, willpower can be enough to help us stick with the steps required to meet our goal. But before long, stressors arise, re-emerge, or approach a boiling point in our lives, and when we are stressed, we are comforted by familiarity. Once we are feeling an unpleasant emotion such as stress, our conscious mind’s logical reasoning loses power– our feelings speak more compellingly to us than our logic. Recognizing the unpleasant feeling, that’s when our subconscious chimes in and says, “See! I told you change was bad, adding in this new thing is making life harder for you now, and you need things to be easier. See how it feels bad? Go back to how you previously managed everything, it was good enough, and you’ll feel better.” We are creatures of habit, and it is in periods of stress that we tend to return to old habits. They simultaneously soothe us by bringing temporary comfort, while also reinforcing our subconscious belief that we aren’t actually capable of the change we tried to bring about, so why bother? Once that voice of doubt creeps it, it easily takes over, and our resolution falls to the wayside.

How do we resist this and power through, even during times of stress?

Using this knowledge, here are three strategies you want to employ to overcome our subconscious resistance:

First, a piece of advice from Letran that I also regularly use with my clients: Since our subconscious values the safety of the known, make sure to break down your resolution into smaller steps that, together, lead to the big change you want to make, but where the first step is not so far from your established norm to trigger your subconscious doubts about your ability to accomplish it. Then the next step should not be such a big leap from the current step, and so on until you reach your goal!

For example, if I made a resolution to go to the gym 5 days a week, I would want to break that down by way of how I plan to accomplish it, rather than jump right to the 5 days. Maybe I start with the plan to go at least 2 days a week for the first month– that way, if I do go 5, great, but if I only go 2, I also have met my starting goal. After a month, I might up my plan to 3 days a week for the next month, then 4 the following, progressing my way toward the goal of 5 the month after. These gradual changes don’t feel as threatening to the subconscious, and gives it less fuel to convince you, “see, this just isn’t for you,” if you fall short, because you will have weeks or months of evidence to the contrary.

Under the goal you wrote down, write your very next action step– this is the next small step you can take toward your larger goal. What specific action will you take? Make sure it is something not too far off from what your established norm is.

Second, and this is also a strategy recommended in the book and that I use with clients: do a quick sensory imagination exercise. This means, use your mind to imagine yourself confidently and capably doing the next step of the thing you have set a goal around. As Letran writes, “see it, touch it, hear it, taste it, smell it, and feel the powerful positive emotions attached to it.”

For example, maybe I imagine myself confidently setting the weights on a machine at the gym, hearing the metal pin slide into place, feeling my hands grip around the slightly cool metal handles, smelling the sweaty smell of the gym (reality isn’t always roses, so our sensory exercises can’t always be either!), feel the tightness in my muscles as they contract, their controlled release as I move back to my starting position, and imagining a few repetitions of this. 

This imagination exercise will only take 1 minute to do, and yet each time you do it, making it as realistic as possible by incorporating your senses into what you are imagining, you will be providing your subconscious with what it will interpret as evidence that you do, as it turns out, have experience succeeding in this activity.

Look at the action step you wrote under your goal. Spend 1 minute in your mind, imagining with as much sensory detail as you can, following through on that action.

For our third strategy, Letran reminds us that our subconscious pays more attention to how we are feeling than what words we are saying or thinking. So, if you say “I can do this!,” to try to give yourself a pep talk, but what you really believe is “I don’t know if I can, it seems really hard,” or “somehow everyone else seems to be able to do this, but I’m nervous,” your subconscious is going to focus in on and respond to the “it seems really hard” or “I’m nervous” parts. And our subconscious wants to protect us from those negative emotions, so in the absence of any direction as to how it is supposed to protect you, it will default to encouraging you to avoid the thing you are worried about.

So when we find ourselves doubting our abilities, we want to provide our subconscious with an alternative strategy (instead of avoidance) for how to look after us. Instead of just thinking, “I’m nervous,” also add in, “and here is what I will do to take care of myself, and here is how that will help me feel good” and fill in whatever self-care response you know actually helps you.

With the going to the gym example, I might be thinking, “I’m so stressed right now, but I know I should go to the gym like I said I would.” My subconscious ignores the logic and only attends to the emotion of “I’m stressed,” and it says, “new things are stressful! Put the gym off for another time, you don’t have it in you.” What I should do in that moment is acknowledge my stress, but also acknowledge how going to the gym might help me to feel better: “I’m stressed, but working out will help me release endorphins. It also helps me when I feel stressed to feel like I accomplished something; I love that feeling of accomplishment, and meeting this goal will feel good.”

With your resolution or goal in mind, think about why you want to make this change. Set aside the logic of why you “should” make this change, and instead focus on how you expect that succeeding at it will make you feel. Write down those positive feeling words! Now you can refer back to them if you are in a moment where stress or other unpleasant feelings threaten to trigger your subconscious mind’s avoidance response.

There you have it! I hope these strategies help you to find success with your newest resolution!

Michelle Lange, Psy.D., is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and the owner of Relaction Therapy, providing mental health and wellness consultation services. Visit relaction.us to book a session or consultation appointment.

Image credit: Tim Mossholder via Unsplash