Back-Door Your Brain for a Better New Year’s Resolution
Harnessing your subconscious to achieve positive change
New Year’s Resolutions. Ugh.
Even when successful, they are imperfect — often creating unnecessary pressure and/or making it more difficult to be grateful for the positive things in our lives.
Ready to try something different; perhaps better?
First, locate a dictionary (maybe the toughest part of all this), close your eyes, and then pick a word completely at random. To demonstrate how you will turn this random word into a resolution, I’ll use two real-world examples:
First, I’ll start with my friend Claire, since her words have generally been more straightforward than my own. The three words that we are focusing on are ‘Daisywheel’, ‘Rabbit’ and ‘Cunnilingus’…and yes, we laughed at that last one too.
The year Claire selected ‘Daisywheel’ her daughter (Kacey) was entering the final year of high school. After a tough divorce, Claire’s relationship with Kacey wasn’t where she wanted it to be and she was unsure how to fix it.
By the way, a daisywheel is the round thing on a typewriter that rotates around to strike a key to paper. It leaves an imprint.
Claire printed off pictures of daisywheels, placing them throughout her office and house as a reminder that she only had one year left to make an imprint before Kacey left for college.
No second chances.
During that year, Claire really stepped it up — making time for her daughter at the expense of other commitments; supporting her; teaching her; just being there for her…doing everything possible to leave the best overall imprint possible.
Claire’s focus that year had a profoundly positive impact on both women. Kacey left for school more prepared than she would have otherwise, while Claire emerged from her divorce head held high, buoyed by the focus ‘Daisywheel’ had given her. Today, the two are closer than I would ever have imagined possible prior to that year.
Her other two words worked out quite nicely as well.
The year Claire chose ‘Rabbit’, it became code for tending to her burrow, a.k.a. the house she wanted to fix up and sell so she could move back east to be with her boyfriend (now husband) full time. A year later, the house was sold and the moving van packed.
‘Cunnilingus’…well, you can probably figure that one out on your own. Suffice to say it was a good year for Claire!
By contrast, my own words have generally been tougher to cipher, but the impact has been no less profound. ‘Long-Horned Beetle’, ‘Fluoride’ and ‘Champion’ are the three I’ll be focusing on here.
‘Long-Horned Beetle’ was the first word I ever selected…and the most difficult to work out. It took weeks, and it wasn’t until I was nearly ready to give up that I finally figured it out. I was right in the middle of expressing my envy of ‘Daisywheel’ and its clear meaning to Claire, bemoaning how I was stuck with a ridiculous-looking creature that didn’t seem to correlate to anything useful when it suddenly hit me:
Expectation.
I already knew I needed to be better about being content with what was rather than how I expected things to be. Still, knowing something is a problem and understanding how to fix that problem are two different things…and so it was with me and my inability to let go of my expectations.
Confronted with a word I wasn’t happy with at all, I realized I had actually been given a great gift — a tool that would help me to make this much-needed change.
From that day forward, any time I became frustrated with a situation that didn’t match my expectations, I would simply think of the long-horned beetle (which often induced a chuckle). Picturing this absurd little creature would bring a level of acceptance for whatever situation I found myself in, and the more I repeated this exercise, the easier it became. By year’s end, my ability to let go of expectation and be more fully present and content moment to moment had improved exponentially…an unqualified success!
The next year ‘Fluoride’ became a symbol for more foresight in my decision-making; to have a more preventative mindset and be less impulsive. It didn’t have as profound an effect as ‘Long-Horned Beetle’ but it did make me think a bit more deeply on numerous occasions. Overall, it was a useful and interesting exercise.
Finally, the word ‘Champion’ served as a reminder of what I wanted to focus on that year — being a good father to my daughter and furthering my writing career. When I would catch myself wasting time or doing things that weren’t contributing to those goals (or at the very least recharging my batteries so I could get back to doing those things), I would ask myself, “Is this what a champion would do?” If the answer was no, I’d make a change. By year’s end, course-correcting had become much easier.
Occasionally I’ll still use ‘Long-Horned Beetle’ or ‘Champion’ if I feel myself slipping, but it’s rare. The positive changes seem to be (mostly) permanent.
All told, each of the six words yielded a positive outcome to some varying degree — a record that stacks up very well when compared to normal resolutions.
Human brains are associative, and using code-words (or symbols) is a great way to simplify and internalize complex ideas. Rather than focusing on what we want to change, this method turns the focus instead to something we might need to change…even if we don’t know what that is right away.
Beneath our awareness hide truths about ourselves. Picking a word at random bypasses our consciousness to give us a peek into the dark corners of our mind that are generally hidden from view. Eventually, something should associate — a goal you want to achieve or a change you want to make — for which your chosen word then becomes a symbol. You’ll still need to put in the work, but the associative nature gives it a high chance of success, and with a reward that is well worth the effort.
Ultimately, what do you have to lose? You can stick with a traditional resolution and its failure rate of roughly 90% -or- you can try something different, using a back-door into your brain for a better outcome in 2023.
I know what I’ll be doing…just as soon as I find that dictionary.
