Ring in the New Year With the Bell You Already Have
By Bill Benson · Jan 2, 2023
It’s New Year’s Resolution high season, and people everywhere are vowing to become better versions of themselves by achieving something they desire. I am not against goal setting or accomplishing things, but many of us are going about the wrong way!
Although family, friends, and society encourage us to “lose 20 pounds” or “make more money” as a prescription for happiness, no external modification will authentically create or sustain our well-being. Instead, it’s how we talk to ourselves about our intentions that ushers in success or ensures failure.
I’m always dumbfounded by how devoted we are to making external changes without considering our thought processes first. This practice is ironic because we action-plan for healthier goals but forego the vital process of introspection.
In other words, the key to New Year’s Resolution effectiveness lies not in a focused outcome but in finding effective methods for changing our internal conversations, which lead to healthier outlooks, dispositions, and eventual achievements.
Muscling Through
To my clinical eye, life-struggle is usually not psychosis-driven but an issue of self-perception. My training offers methods for helping individuals and couples tackle distorted thinking to achieve better outcomes.
To use an analogy, we are all born with muscles; our objective is to strengthen and develop these tissues so they can best assist us in getting to where we need to go.
The more robust and coordinated our system, the more durable we become and the more expansive our journeys. However, we cannot attain this state by starving ourselves, yet this is precisely what we do when we adhere to limiting beliefs about ourselves.
How we manage our inner thinking is the best determiner of overall well-being.
A mainstay of psychological discourse involves our instinct for living to our true potential. I, too, operate under the assumption that we come into this world whole and complete – that the ingredients we need for our happiness are already in place – we simply have to access them and follow a nurturing recipe.
A Separate Peace
We can adopt healthier self-talk through Perspective Shifting and Reframing techniques, among others. You see, it’s not life’s situations but our self-perceptions about these circumstances that dictate our mood and trigger our reactivity or responsiveness. Thoughts lead to feelings, which trigger actions. Positive thoughts lead to benevolence and contribution, while negative thoughts lead to impulsiveness and consequences.
My job is to assist my clients in their thought selection by modeling alternate ways of observing them. Most come into counseling focused on their obstacles (“I’m overweight,” “I don’t make enough money,” etc.). During our sessions, I challenge these negative self-perceptions.
For example, I will reframe a client’s presenting problem: “It seems as though your struggle was the necessary wake-up call that prompted you to pick up the phone and schedule your first therapy session.” By shifting the focus from issue to opportunity, I’m signaling to clients ways to redefine the grip negatively-held perceptions have over them.
Next, I encourage clients to become curious about their unproductive self-beliefs: Who, what, where, when, why, and how did these limiting perceptions take root? Why are the weeds still blossoming? Where’s the water source, and why is the hose still in their hands? What steps can they take to choke out these interruptive thoughts, ideas, and beliefs. What do healthier perspectives look like?
Our therapeutic goal becomes reducing struggle by fact-checking thoughts. Through structured cross-talk, clients uncover limiting beliefs, discuss them, and exchange them for more viable perceptions. Through this self-monitoring process, clients learn to approach their lives by attaching to ideas of abundance, not scarcity.
Live Life in Peace, Not in Pieces
Self-esteem is reinforced and sustained by developing ways of managing our inner dialog. We free ourselves to possibility and promise when we acknowledge and work through our negative assumptions or limiting self-talk. We determine and utilize more appropriate thoughts, feelings, and actions for any circumstance.
Ultimately, one’s inner dialog peppers life with success or riddles it with failure.
Conjuring false beliefs that you’re somehow stumbling into 2023 in substandard ways is a non-starter. Psychologist/researcher Brené Brown notes: “You cannot shame or belittle people into changing their behaviors.” While goals can be productive, we best reach them by acknowledging our strengths and not focusing on our perceived weaknesses.
Set down worn-out perceptions and pick new strategies based on observation, not subjectivity. Empowerment pivots on our abilities to authentically navigate life’s various circumstances without distorting them.
Therapy creates an intentional path for developing and implementing this skill set. When we train ourselves to consider other ways of viewing circumstances, we gain the tools necessary for expanding our journeys and enhancing our well-being.
Enter 2023 Ringing!
So, this year, instead of trying to achieve some external result in your pursuit of happiness, resolve to get mentally fit by addressing your inner landscape.
Learning to mediate your thoughts for clarity and accuracy will set you up for success on so many levels…So why not enjoy getting to know yourself and experiencing all the possibilities this mindset provides?