Kevin Billett is the co-founder and CEO of The Journey Seminars and pioneer of The Visionary Leadership Programmes.

The start of a new season is a good time to take stock of our quality of life, of our accomplishments and our ongoing goals. For example, just take a moment to cast your mind back over bygone years and check out what happened to the New Years’ resolutions you made. You know the ones: the diet and get fit plans; the financial and career goals; the step up, step out, de-stress and have more fun plans; the live life more fully goals that we’ve all had at some time or other.

If you’re like most people, you seemed determined at first; you may have gone gung-ho with your new action plans through January and into February.

Then you probably hit some speed bumps, wobbled a bit in your resolve, got distracted or gave up, so that by March or April you were pretty much back to square one, back to your old ways. And now here it is, time for spring, time for a sloughing off of winter and time for new growth, and yet those old ways keep showing up. Why was that? What sabotaged you, took you off track? Your goals were healthy, they made sense, right? So what kept undermining you and holding you to your old standards?

The answer is simple, though often misunderstood: your old programming was the main offender.

Think of it like this: your personal computer has an operating system – a version of Windows, or OSX if you own a Mac – and from time to time the software manufacturer issues an upgrade, a better, more advanced operating system. So you buy the new CD-ROM and insert it in the drive. What happens next is interesting: the new system seeks out the old software and uninstalls the components that are no longer needed. It removes the old, clunky programming, strips out the inefficient and superseded components.

Only then does it begin to install the new – hopefully more efficient, smarter, speedier – new software.

It’s a lesson we could all learn from. When we want to change our old, conditioned patterns of behavior in life, we first need to uninstall the old programming – then any new programming becomes much more effective.

But our normal practice is to simply ignore our old clunky software and repeatedly try to overwrite it with new programming. It’s an inefficient way to work.

So, what types of old programming are we talking about here? It varies, and the most important ones are our old beliefs, rules, vows or promises, and values. Let’s use old beliefs as an example. Since early childhood each of us is conditioned with the limiting or negative beliefs of others.

Even when they have the best of intentions, our parents, teachers, authority figures repeatedly instill in us what ‘we can’t’, ‘must not’ or ‘should not’ do, be or become and what we are not capable of. It is often programming that is simply handed on from generation to generation with little basis in truth – it’s just a “given” – and it can relate to restriction of culture, education or qualification, socio-economic background, gender, race, and so on. And our own experiences seem to add weight to these negative beliefs, when each time we try something new and fail we have an already installed “reason” for that lack of success.

Eventually the habitual beliefs become ingrained; modern research shows they ‘stick’ unconsciously with us at a deep level of awareness.

Then, as we get older and, hopefully, wiser we move on from our old negativities – we educate and train ourselves, we work hard, we gain in ability and experience – and we may no longer consciously believe our old beliefs. We may have loads of new, more supportive and wholesome beliefs that more accurately reflect our reasonable expectations based on our proven abilities and our actual circumstances. If we have taken the advice of the modern personal growth movement, we have probably also practised positive affirmations and visualisations to confirm and reinforce our real potential with “I can”, “I will”, “I am able, competent, confident, talented”, and so forth.

Yet what have we actually achieved? What we’ve done is simply to add more conditioning to the old. We’ve mixed it in, we’ve overwritten old programming with new. And the trouble with that is that the old junk is still clogging up our hard drives. The end result is a mess of conflict, overload, inefficiency and, eventually, possible crashing.

So this Spring try something different. Before making your new resolutions, simply stop, be still for a while in a quiet space and inquire deeply within: if there was old limiting programming in there, what might that be? Write out all the old beliefs, the childhood or later stuff that could hold you back – even if you don’t believe the old beliefs any more.

Be ruthlessly honest with yourself. Then notice where this old stuff came from: whose is it really? Who passed it on to you? For each negativity, imagine packaging it up and handing it back to its originator, and then cutting any unhealthy energetic ties you might have with that person. Wring out some of that old conditioning, free up some internal space, then ring in the new by opening freshly and writing down your plans and goals for the coming 12 months – they will be more effortlessly achievable this way.

See you at the gym!

For more information call The Journey offices on 02 6629 1881 or visit:
www.thejourney.com