“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” — Napoleon Hill

Lesbian MoneyÉmile Coué is the father of autosuggestion and according to Wikipedia, “Autosuggestion is a process by which an individual trains the subconscious mind to believe something, or systematically schematizes the person’s own mental associations, usually for a given purpose. A trivial example of self-improvement by autosuggestion is the New Year’s resolution, especially if it is followed up by systematic attention to the resolution.”

But what is systematic attention to the resolution? Gina Trapani at Lifehacker.com points us to a few posts on this topic.

1. How to make and keep your New Year’s resolutions
2. How to create 12 new habits a year
3. Getting To Done: Fresh Start For The New Year

The articles above deal with resolutions in general, but what about those that are specific to personal finances? According to a new survey by Money Magazine, “More than a third of Americans are planning to make a financial change as their New Year’s resolution for 2007. The survey showed that 37 percent of Americans plan to make a New Year’s resolution involving finances – in the past, just 23 percent of respondents had made such resolutions. The top financial resolutions were planning to save more (32 percent) and paying down debt (25 percent).”

Another article from Money magazine states, “There are tricks to making resolutions stick, behaviorists say. The most important: Downplay the up-front costs by making the goal realistic, routine and socially binding.” Click here for the full details, but in short:

1. Make a plan
2. Automate it
3. Have someone hold you to it

Keep in mind that building good habits take time. To be exact about the amount of “time”- experts agree that it takes 21 days to create a new habit. People can set in motion the things that will change their lives in just three short weeks of solid repetition.

Are you serious about the things mentioned above? Then make time for it. Here’s one final tip to jumpstart your New Year. Gina Trapani just released, Lifehacker the book: 88 Tech Tricks to Turbocharge Your Day. When you’re more productive in your day-to-day, you’ll have more time to take action on the resolutions set for 2007.