Betsy Guerra says New Year's resolutions fail because your brain runs on autopilot. Instead, use positive affirmations to reprogram your habits and self-beliefs, even if it feels like lying at first. Repeat them in the mirror consistently to change how you see yourself and what you do.
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5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Happy New Year. What if I told you that for the New Year, we're gonna do things different? No New Year's resolutions, That's it. Gone. Because guess what? Last year, the last day of the year, or the couple last week of the year, you were reflecting on your year and realizing, oh, my gosh, I'm still fat. I still haven't lost the weight I wanted to lose this year, and I'm still not where I want to be at work. And I didn't accomplish those goals that I had was determined to accomplish. And guess what? I'm still in a rut in my relationship, and I didn't do anything about it. And I keep on procrastinating and procrastinating and postponed owning everything that I want to do. So why to have New Year's resolutions, we're going to focus on something else. This year. I am going to show you how to outsmart your brain. So what we're going to do is instead of doing all these New Year's resolutions, we're going to go straight to execution. And how you do that is by tricking your brain. Here's what we do. Our brain is in autopilot the majority of times because we have too many things going on for our brain to have to think about every little thing that we experience. So what the brain does is it goes into autopilot and creates habits so that we can do a lot of things without having to think about each one of them. So when you wake up in the morning, you don't think about, where do I put this shoe? Does this go on the left or on the right? Well, my daughter still kind of does because she's three. But you don't have to do that because you've learned it. You've created the habit, and it's already in autopilot. Imagine if you had to think about little things like that, then when the time came that you had to make a really important, serious decision at work or with a family member or with doctors that are telling you we need to make a decision in terms of treatment, then it would be impossible. You would be extremely or more overwhelmed than you are right now. So the brain, which is wired to keep us safe and protect us and make sure that we survive, it takes care of us by going into autopilot. Now, the thing about that is that we have a lot of habits that we think are part of our character, personality, temperament, their habits. Oh, no, Because I'm not expressive. Oh, yeah. Because since I'm an introvert. I don't talk about my feelings and I don't talk in public. All those are habits you learned that you told your brain, this is how I do things and this is how I am. And your brain believed it. Because the good and the bad thing about the brain is that it believes whatever you tell it. The brain can be a little stupid. Sometimes it's super smart, but it's really stupid at times because it takes things literal. It doesn't understand the context. So when you say like, oh my gosh, my mom is gonna kill me if I show her that I got a D, your brain goes, what? You're gonna be killed. Oh my gosh. So then it creates all this anxiety and stress and overwhelm because it's wanting to protect you from getting killed. The brain takes it literal. If you say like, oh my gosh, I'm gonna die if I don't lose five pounds, then your brain's gonna be like. And then you're gonna get more anxiety and guess what, you're gonna eat more because you're so anxious about the whole idea of dying. So the good thing about the brain being literal and believing everything you tell it is that we can use it to our advantage and we can outsmart our super smart brain. And the way we do that is through positive affirmations. I know, I know. Oh my gosh. I've heard this so many times. Well, if you've heard it many times, then maybe it's about time you start listening. When you say positive affirmations to yourself when you look at yourself in the mirror. And instead of saying like, oh my gosh, I'm so fat and I hate myself or I, I hate the way I look. Instead of saying that because your brain is believing that. And by believing that, your brain is going to start acting or continue acting in a way that, that continues to become real. And you perpetuate this habit. And you did that, you did that to yourself. Or maybe people in your life contributed to doing it. Maybe somebody kept on telling you you're ugly, you're not smart, you're fat, you're this, you're not good at that. And you've believed it again because the brain is literal. So now that you know about this, it is your responsibility. Not the responsibility of your parents that didn't know any better. Not the responsibility of the bullies at school or your ex boyfriend or girlfriend or your ex husband or wife. This is your responsibility. What are you going to tell your brain? What are you going to make yourself believe. Now, let me explain something about this. Just the other day, I was coming back from a trip, and I was in the airplane with my friend, and I'm telling her she wanted to lose some pounds. And she was telling me, you know, but I don't want to be telling myself in the mirror, oh, you're beautiful. Because I don't like the way I look. So I don't want to be complacent with just being beautiful the way I look right now. And I explained to her that that's not how this works. The idea of telling yourself that you're beautiful is to make sure that you tell your brain so that your brain believes it and starts acting in a way that it will allow you to really see in the mirror what you want to see. So it's not about, oh, I'm beautiful, and settling with being the way I am. It's not about being like, you know, I'm doing great things. Even though you're not where you want to be in your career, it's not about settling. It's about telling yourself what you want to believe so that you can talk yourself into it. So you tell yourself, I'm beautiful. And if you. And you're going to lie to yourself, yes, you are going to lie to yourself, you're not going to believe that. You tell yourself, I'm beautiful, I'm beautiful, and look yourself in the eyes. And if you can't find something beautiful and it's too hard to say it, I don't know, turn around, and maybe there's something beautiful about you. Maybe it's the hair or the eyes. If not, if you can't see anything beautiful about you, say it anyway. Lie. Lie to yourself. Because the idea of positive affirmations is to tell your brain what you want it to believe. And when your brain believes that you're worthy, that you're beautiful, that you deserve to be treated a certain way, that you're loved, that you're special, that you're unique, then you start believing and acting accordingly. I know people that have been on diets and have been exercising like crazy, and they've done everything, everything possible to lose weight. And it doesn't happen because guess what? You're telling your brain. You're ugly, you're fat, you're not worthy. So your brain is being counterproductive to what you're trying to execute, even with your actions. The brain is the most powerful, powerful mechanism we have in our bodies, in our lives. Use it. Tell yourself what you want to believe. Lie to yourself and it will get to the point in which the unconscious mind will be like, you've been saying that a lot lately. Should I start believing that? And then you start believing it and you start feeling it. But if you wait till you feel it, good luck with that. Feelings are overrated. Don't wait till you feel like getting out of bed at five o' clock in the morning to work out. You're never gonna feel that way. Wait till you feel like being amazing to your wife or your husband, even though he or she doesn't deserve it. Don't wait until you feel it. It's never gonna happen. If you're where you're at, it's because other things have happened. You've told your brain, oh, he, he doesn't deserve it. I don't. He doesn't love me. He doesn't take care of me. She doesn't do this for me. I don't love her anymore. I'm out of love. You've told yourself that. That's why you are where you're at. You didn't do it intentional, intentionally. And that's what we're gonna do now. We're gonna going to do the same thing intentionally and for your well being. So tell yourself what you want to believe. You will feel like an idiot and that's okay. But the more of an idiot you feel like, the better of a job you're doing. Just do not give up. Keep on doing it. That's one thing that you're going to do all of next year. If you do just that, I guarantee you that your non New Year's resolutions will become a reality. So Happy New Year. Talk yourself into being.
