The year 2020 marks not only a new year but also a new decade.
This is a prime time for people to assess and evaluate their lives, goals, hopes, and dreams. We all know the drill when it comes to New Year’s Resolutions; and yet, the most important step is one people either gloss over or leave out.
The most important step in goal-setting is to take an honest look at your core beliefs.
Most of us believe in the Law of Attraction, which simply means we are capable of attracting into our lives what we focus on. And therein lies the problem. We believe we can focus all of our attention using only our conscious mind, which I’ll now call CM.
If that were true, then every person who can think positively would have attracted their deepest wishes and desires by now.
We forget that our CM is a mere 5% of who we are. The subconscious and implicit minds, which I’ll now call SIM, make up 95% of who we are. Within our SIM exists our control panel that decides where we focus our attention. The CM likes to think it’s in control because it has the capacity for logical thought processes. It’s the fallen angel, the Lucifer within. The SIM is nonverbal; it controls our sensations and emotions; it’s what really drives our decision-making.
Emotions underlie all decisions, which means our emotions ultimately determine where we focus our attention. Our emotional control panel exists within our SIM, not our CM, and those emotions are driven by our core beliefs.
This is why it’s so important to examine our core beliefs when making New Year’s Resolutions or setting goals.
Our strongest core beliefs develop in the womb, infancy, and toddlerhood, before the CM begins to come online. Infants and children are only driven by their SIM, which is the language of sensation and emotion. In other words, their experience of the world around them is what creates the core beliefs that control their thoughts and behaviors throughout life.
If an infant is raised in a stressful environment, then the infant will experience that stress in its body. Remember, there is no CM to interpret those feelings for an infant who lacks the ability to verbally communicate. All an infant knows is the experience of stress, a racing heart, tight and rigid muscles, shallow-breathing, crying, physical discomfort. The more an infant experiences this level of stress (a.k.a. fight or flight), the more it will leave an imprint on the nervous system.
Fast forward a few years when the CM is in the process of developing, and the child starts to have thoughts and memory recall. Those discomforts are still imprinted in the nervous system, which means the child is continually re-experiencing them. Children don’t have the same capacity for logic and reason as adults. That means the child will interpret those sensations and emotions the only way a child is capable of with simple, basic assumptions. I’m not loveable. I’m not worthy. I’m stupid. I’m not enough.
Remember, these thoughts are driven by the child’s SIM. The CM does its best to make sense of the physical discomfort, so it creates stories that align with the experience. That’s where worst-case scenario thinking begins to develop, and it’s a normal survival mechanism in humans. If you’re staring at a tiger, your life depends on it. In today’s society, that level of threat is almost never an issue. The response is primal, and it hasn’t evolved out of us.
Furthermore, we are not taught in childhood how to manage these experiences, so they go unchecked. Even as adults, we maintain a primal tendency to catastrophize when we’re scared, worried, or angry. It’s a necessary part of our built-in survival mechanism, and the SIM controls the survival response.
The key to unlocking it is awareness. Are you aware when you catastrophize? Do you automatically believe the worst-case scenarios you create? Can you consider there might be other possible explanations?
What the heck does all of this have to do with goal-setting and New Year’s Resolutions?
Everything!
To reach goals and stick with resolutions, they must align with your core beliefs.
Pretend one of your resolutions is to lose weight. Without examining the core belief that underlies the excess weight gain in the first place, you’ll be within the 80% who give up on their resolutions before January ends.
There are numerous beliefs that could underlie excess weight, and a common one is I’m not loveable. Your CM might yearn for a loving relationship, but your SIM uses the excess weight as a barrier to protect you from experiencing further pain and suffering. A part of you doesn’t want you to re-experience those painful childhood emotions and sensations that imprinted on your nervous system. That’s why you always sabotage your best efforts to lose weight.
The good news is that you can alter your core beliefs!
It takes awareness and work. I won’t lie, it’s the type of work we aren’t willing to do because it requires us to look within. We have to face parts of ourselves that we otherwise hide from the world, often because we’re ashamed.
You must examine how those beliefs developed and consider that the worst-case scenario you created might not be true. Simply telling yourself, “I am loveable,” isn’t likely to change anything. Remember, the SIM speaks sensation and emotion, so words alone are ineffective. It’s important to experience a new sensation and a different emotion in order to make any lasting change to your core beliefs.
Unless you’re looking inward to resolve the root cause of the issue or deficiency, your efforts to change are not likely to last. Find a skilled practitioner who can help you align your SIM with your CM. You’ll be surprised at how efficiently you shift your focus and start attracting what you desire. It’s key in sticking to your resolutions and achieving your goals.
– Jennifer
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Jennifer Whitacre is an Empowerment Strategist, host of the Yes, And… Podcast, and an author who helps her clients find their unique Life GPS System. It’s her mission to educate & inspire people so they can shift their focus, get unstuck, and move forward in life.
