New Year’s resolutions are common in America. This year four in every ten adults will make anything from a single resolution to a list of them, as long as your arm, to work on in 2010. Three-quarters of the resolutions will be intact by the end of the first week. Two-thirds will survive a month, and a quite astonishing number—nearly half of all the crop of resolutions—will still have been kept by the end of June.

Most of the resolutions made for 2010 will be practical: losing weight (a given after the long gastronomical blowout over the holidays) is number one on the resolutions chart. By weighing you can measure your progress on that one, and you know if you have given up smoking, of course. Less easy to quantify are three other favorites at this time of year: exercise more, spend more time with the kids, and reduce stress.

With the world’s economy being so unstable, millions are resolving to get a job, or to get one that pays better and is more stable. The decision to become a better money manager is also being forced on us, not least as a result of sky-rocketing credit card interest rates. Paying off your credit card debt every month is catching on as a novel idea. Our great-grandparents didn’t do it—there were no credit cards in their day. (But they still had debts to pay.)

Going “green” is another fertile area for resolutions. People are now well beyond promising themselves that they will use recycling bins. They are seeing more clearly the value of shopping for locally grown foodstuffs; they are considering a genuinely fuel-efficient vehicle; and they are investigating fitting more insulation for their home, and installing solar or geothermal methods of house heating and cooling. “I resolve to be greener” is an up and coming hit on the New Year’s resolution charts.

There are plenty of people willing to help us make resolutions. We can buy their books, go to their seminars, or download their friendly voices to learn how. They may tell us to be “SMART:” Specific about our goal, Measuring our progress, Achieving what is within our reach, Resolute in pursuing our goal, and Timely, by not letting our goal disappear in the uncertain mists of the future.

Émile Coué de Châtaigneraie (1857-1926), a French amateur psychologist, excited a lot of interest a hundred years ago with his use of self-improvement optimistic autosuggestion.

His mantra, “Tous les jours à tous points de vue je vais de mieux en mieux” (“Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better”), became very popular. He said that curing our troubles actually requires us to change our subconscious thought. On the other hand he taught that strongly motivating our conscious mind is not the best way to succeed.

Coué insisted that curing our physical and emotional troubles requires that we re-program our subconscious mind’s permanent response. This can only be achieved by using our imagination. He developed a method which was based on his finding that “any idea exclusively occupying the mind turns into reality,” but only to the extent that the new idea is within the realms of possibility. Visualizing the end result—your goal—while repeating the mantra over and over again, occupies the mind until the subconscious is convinced.

WODEN SAYS: What does the soul have to say?

We should always take the idea of making resolutions to a greater depth. Most New Year resolutions are made with a passionate decision to do something important which will change our life. It is a conscious decision usually accompanied by a strong dose of emotional excitement. (People who are not excited by the thought of giving up smoking don’t last a week.)

Next, take your decision to the depth of the Coué method. There your mind visualizes the change having taken place, and as you repeat the mantra, “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better,” you see yourself playing with the kids, throwing away the ashtrays, trying on a slimmer-fitting dress, or whatever represents success in your venture. Slowly the subconscious takes on the progressive idea as its own. If you are going about things in a S.M.A.R.T. way, failure is much less likely.

Then there is the third level to which we can take our zeal for self-improvement. It is to match our response with the desires of our soul.  After all, the soul is supposed to be in charge of our life—we don’t always allow for that. Souls are in favor of change, but not always the changes we consciously think about.

We may resolve to slim down and eat more healthfully. Our soul may be wanting us to love ourselves more and to get out of that painful relationship.

We may resolve to stop smoking. Our soul may be wanting us to stop accepting the stress we are subjecting ourselves to at work, and to take another job or an early retirement.

We may resolve to spend more time with the kids. Our soul may be wanting us to stop chasing young women at work and spend more sincere affectionate time with our wife.

When we match our resolve to the deeper desire of the soul, we succeed: people who love themselves more lose weight more readily; people dealing with stress permanently find they don’t need an addiction as a crutch; men who cease philandering enjoy their marriage more.

Don’t wait until the clock strikes twelve. Ponder what your heart is saying to you, then tell yourself that you will be happy to make a truly meaningful change. That will work really well because you have made sure the reason was right.

Now, visualize, breathe in deeply and say after me: “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.”