New Season—New Goals

It’s time to shift gears as summer exchanges to fall and we prepare for this El Nino season that’s coming. We are all influenced by the weather and seasons as people shift from summer activities and duties to fall ones. School and work ramp up intensely and contrast sharply against the less intense type of summer pressures. Pressures are year round, but there are different brands of them in each season.
We want to make the most out of each season and exploit what it has to offer. We need different goals for each season to experience its potential. But our subconscious minds have their own agendas and seem to make their own decisions without even consulting us. Habitual behaviors begin to emerge and while some habits are good, many are bad and the bad ones need attention.
The first stage of change is to determine what goals are needed: better studying for school? More attentive at work? Eating better? Exercise the right amount—not too much, not too little? Being supportive to those we love without being enabling or nagging? Getting those we love to be more supportive to us?
We’ve all got goals to meet and we’re smart enough to know what they are and even how to meet them usually. Yet many go unmet. This is because the nefarious subconscious mind is working overtime to hold existing behaviors and attitudes in place. The subconscious resists change because that’s its job: to hold things in place. If we teach it good habits it will hold those in place too. The trick is teaching it the right way so it accepts new and good behaviors and attitudes.
Teach your subconscious mind new behaviors gradually. Apply smart, gradual progress to a new behavior. Abrupt changes cause the subconscious to resist. Learning is about pace and it is different for every person and for every behavior. What’s hard for me might be easy for you and vice versa!
If you can make the time and have the resources, it can be very helpful to have objective and experienced assistance to see the forest through the trees. We do not have to be trapped in familiar patterns. We can be free to choose direction and learn how to.
Scott Spackey is a state certified counselor and interventionist, certified life-coach and clinical hypnotherapist.
For more information, please call 661-904-5353, email: Scott@Life-Mind.com and www.LIFE-MIND.com.