Most people start the New Year off with a list of well- intentioned resolutions that they want to accomplish in the coming year. They may want to stop smoking, drinking, start dieting, spend less money on frivolous things or a host of other ideas. The truth is, however, a week or two into the new year, they often “fall off the wagon” and are back to their old ways again. And they’re usually kicking themselves as the year progresses until the next New Year’s resolutions are made up again with great hopes and expectations. And so it goes . . .

In actuality, we don’t change much - unless we have good reasons to change. Sometimes it's health considerations. Sometimes it's interpersonal demands. But the fact is, we don’t change unless and until we are actually ready and willing to change. And most of us aren't ready or really willing to change - until we are. How we get to that point is what this is all about.

So, are we left to endure yet another year of dissatisfaction and self-deprecation? Indeed, are we destined to go through our entire lives without making any meaningful changes in our lives? The answer is a resounding NO . . . if you want to change.

How does one want to change? Well, you might think to yourself, “I’ll just change my mind,” but as you probably already know from your past experiences, that usually doesn’t work for very long. That’s because it's only your conscious mind you’ve changed and it's just not going to go the distance and bring about permanent change. That’s because most changes are made using will power, which is a function of the conscious mind. So, the first thing to understand is that its not your conscious mind that is running the show you call your life.

It's actually your subconscious mind that is “driving the bus” you call you. And that subconscious mind is only about 3 years old - emotionally. It acts on emotion because it is an emotional “being.” That’s why we make so many emotional decisions in our lives only to later consciously reconsider them and often regret them. That’s because your conscious mind is your “adult” mind, which contains your reasoning power, ego, judgment and will power. By the way, most of us use our will power to enforce the changes we want to implement, only to discover that it doesn’t work for very long. That’s because the subconscious mind is what’s running the show, so no matter how much we may consciously want to change our behavior, our subconscious programing rules. So, how do we get the subconscious mind to change, you ask? Here are a couple of answers.

One way is to use hypnosis. It’s a classic approach to making direct suggestions to the subconscious mind to make various changes in your life. You see, the subconscious mind has formed certain beliefs about life based upon its earliest experiences. It holds onto those beliefs very strongly and no matter what kind of conscious rational reasons are given to it, the subconscious mind will cling to its original beliefs until they are changed. Hypnosis can be used to offer direct suggestions to the subconscious to change or other healing methods can be used to impart the message to it. Hypnosis works. There’s no doubt about it, but it usually works best when it's used in conjunction with healing techniques that actually change how the subconscious views certain situations. Hypnosis also usually takes going to a hypnotist who can either teach you how to enter a self-hypnosis state or who will directly hypnotize you and then either work with you doing healing work or give you the suggestions you need to make changes in your life on a subconscious level.