Have you been able to keep your New Year’s resolution? Statistics say that upwards of 92% of Americans will break their resolutions before the middle of January.

Just what is it about this annual tradition that makes it so difficult to keep?  A simple New Year’s resolution to start losing weight might well end in disappointment and failure, but there is hope.

New Year’s resolutions are popular because they hold the promise of a clean slate. Seemingly all the bad decisions of the previous year can be wiped away simply by making a personal promise to do better. Who wouldn’t want to participate in something like that?

All year long we make many decisions. We stop at red lights and go on green lights. These are easy conscious decisions. After all, if we did not stop, the consequences could be immediately devastating. Conversely, a life altering resolution like stopping cigarettes requires a much deeper thought process, one that involves personal examination. Barbara Hall, TV writer and producer, had it right when she said, “You are in control of your life. Don’t ever forget that. You are what you are because of the conscious and subconscious choices you have made.”

The subconscious mind is the hidden continual thought patterns that exist in all our heads. Whereas the conscious mind is easily controlled with thought or observation the subconscious is not so simple to detect. Have you ever laid awake at night and continually mulled over a problem and can’t seem to settle on a satisfactory answer? Well, in a way, this is your conscious mind debating your subconscious to come up with a workable solution; a solution that matches your true character.

“Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, ‘This is the real me’, and when you have found that attitude, follow it.” These words were written by William James an American philosopher of the nineteenth century. The quest to find the “real me” may or may not take a lifetime and can have many small successes and failures along the way

OK...so you failed to keep your New Year’s resolution again. Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again. It’s inevitable that one fine day you, along with your newly found “inner self”, will finally keep that hard fought for resolution.

Joey Allen, a freelance writer based in Nashville, Tenn. is the founder of Thincraft, an overweight walking group in the Metro area. Thincraft meets every Saturday at a predetermined location. For more information, Allen can be reached at thincraft@gmail.com