I read two brilliant quotes this morning:

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it.” from Charles R Swindoll and “What the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” from Napoleon Hill.

They set me thinking.

January is the month for new beginnings,  assessing how the past year has turned out, and how you want next 12 months to be.

If the majority of your life is determined by how you react to it, then your reactions are crucial to helping you make changes that become permanent, rather than just ideas in your head. Agreed?

And, if your mind can come up with an idea, and you believe in it…well, isn’t Napoleon Hill right, and you can achieve it?

Let me explain.

I have an ingrained habit or response to new things – new years, new months, etc. I set out enthusiastically, all guns blazing, determined that this time it’s going to be different and I will follow through and achieve what I set out to do.

Then…BOOM. Something or someone knocks me off track.

I become dispirited. I think I have failed. I give up. I decide I will never get going again and embrace the old habit I was trying to get rid of. Sound familiar?

So, I am reacting to what has happened to me (Swindoll)…and not truly believing in what I want to do (Hill). Agreed?

Except now I have an awareness of this repeated pattern of behaviour. By acknowledging it, I can see it coming.  Now I am trying to take action. Not quite evasive action, but certainly action to get back on track again.

How do I do this?

By recognising when these feelings start to happen.  Hearing that little voice in the back of my head and accepting it. Then saying to that little voice,  “No. Not this time. No. This time, it will be OK. I will get back on track. Goodbye little voice”.

It takes time though. To learn to hear the little voice.  And to then make those changes.  Give yourself the luxury of allowing yourself the time to do that in 2015.

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