Three Revelations to Motivate Your Change in 2017

Or, It’s February. Do You Know Where Your Resolutions Are?

Time is false. Let’s just start with that.
It’s a man-made construct to help us understand our environment and create a sense of commonality so that we can do things like have people attend a meeting in unison.
Stephen J. Gould wrote an excellent article on how messed up our calendar system is in his essay, “Dousing Diminutive Dennis's Debate (or DDDD = 2000).” You can find it in his book Dinosaurs in a Haystack.
Here’s a quick summary of the article while you wait for your order to arrive or your Kindle to fire up.
And here’s further explanation from Dartmouth.
Revelation #1: The calendar that you’ve grown up with, the one that you’ve been indoctrinated to, is made-up and inaccurate.
So, why do we put such value into milestone dates? They just don’t have real meaning.
Well… just because something is false doesn’t mean that it is without value. As the old saying goes, even a stopped clock is accurate two times each day. (By the way, that’s 712 times per year for a device that’s not even trying.)
These dates have symbolic meaning to us. They matter on an emotional level. Special dates give us touchstones or reference points for our pursuits in this life.
Birthdays and anniversaries mark the passing of a year; milestone birthdays (16, 18, 21, and any age ending in 0) give us a sense of growth within our cultural standards.
(NOTE: For those of you outside the US, the three numbers above represent, respectively, when we can legally begin driving, become considered a legal adult and when we can legally begin drinking. The ages in your country may be different, but the emotion of the milestone is the same.)
New Year’s Day carries this emotional baggage too. Or maybe it’s emotional power. I guess it depends on your perspective.
We impart a meaning of “a new start” on the new year. A semi-misguided belief that we’ll be different now that the annual cycle of days has made it around to the symbolism of 1/1.
Emotionally, we draw a line in the sands of time. We say to ourselves, “The old behavior stops here. The new me starts here.” And we attempt to start creating a new way of being for ourselves.
It’s now one month into 2017. How ya’ doin’ with that?

Where are you with your business goals? Did you set any?????
If you set your goal, did you make it realistic? Maybe you want to increase your business by $100,000 this year. Or maybe that number is $1,000,000.
Depending on your company’ size, those could be intimidating numbers. Good! They should be. Challenge yourself to grow bigger – don’t play small.
Even as these numbers seem huge, if you break them down, they become manageable. Monthly growth benchmarks for each of those annual goals is only $8,333 and $83,333 respectively. You can do that!
How many sales do you need to make those numbers real?
Did you set benchmarks? Did you achieve your January goal?
If you didn’t, did it demoralize you or did the process give you something to learn from?
For most people, their resolutions are now forgotten and they have fallen back into the patterns that they know. Their comfort zone won over the fear of the unknown. The gravity of the known was stronger than the effort required to break out of the atmosphere of their old world into the vastness of new space.
So, why don’t they just start over? If their goal was important enough to being on January 1, why is it not important enough to start again on any other day of the year?
Revelation #2: Emotion Beats Facts and Reality
Mainly because all the other days of the year do not have the same resonance as reference points for a new start.
Memorial Day marks the unofficial beginning of summer. By then we should be in shape. If we start exercising now, summer will be over by the time we’re in shape for the beach.
July 4 marks the middle of summer. Who starts anything in the middle?
Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer. Wow, it’s already September… Might as well wait for January to start any new plans. Fall and winter are coming and we’ll need those extra pounds to stay warm.
Thanksgiving? Time to eat with friends and family.
Christmas? New Year’s is only a week away. We can start then.
And the cycle continues…
Revelation #3: Your Emotional Relationship with a Falsehood is Keeping You Stuck
Get over it. Like any bad relationship, your fascination with New Year’s Day is holding you back. It has too much power over you. You gave it that power. You can take it back.
At the start of this year, I published a 36-minute video to help viewers create their vision of success for 2017.
I'll bring it back later this year.
If you are the kind of person who likes videos of cute children, watch this.
If you are the kind of person who likes straight, no-nonsense talk, watch this from Gary Vaynerchuk.
If you are like me, you watched both. You’ll find the same message coming from two vastly different sources.
That message: You can resolve to change your life, your business, any day of the year.
So, go do it. Get moving.
No, not tomorrow! Right NOW!! TODAY!!!
Your business is waiting for you. Prospects are looking for you. Their searching Google for your service right now. Your customers want to hear from you, your employees want to know that they have security and you want to feel like you’re actively growing your business.
And you know what else is waiting for you? The lifestyle that you imagined when you became an entrepreneur.
I’m ending this article now so that you’ll get up and do something constructive.
When you get back, post a comment below about what you accomplished.
If you’re in need of extra motivation to overcome obstacles in your path, contact me for a free consultation.
I work with many entrepreneurs to help them create a success mindset. Hypnotherapy can help you to realize your goals through reframing the barriers to your growth.
Only you can tell yourself if you can or cannot succeed.
I’m here to help you realize that you can.
Now GO!!!!