It may be the middle of January, but if you haven’t made a new year resolution consider doing so. We can all benefit from a pledge to improve some aspect of our behavior, and from an effective plan to make it happen.

Changing suboptimal habits is no easy task,  let me suggest a few ways to increase your odds of success.

First, before you resolve to do anything, take a close look at what you have (or haven’t) done during the year that’s coming to a close that you wish had transpired differently. Did you gain weight? Did you spend too little (or too much) time on developing your career by sharpening some skills? Did you exercise less than you should have? Were you as supportive a friend, parent, partner or child as you know you should have been? Spend too much or save too little?

If you’re determined to do better in the new year, it’s essential that you take a really close look at what stood in the way of your achieving success.  Doctors can’t successfully treat a condition unless they diagnose it properly, so similarly you need to be able to look critically at where you’ve fallen short and what’s contributed to that shortfall. Granted, it’s hard for us to view ourselves objectively but it’s essential in order create a realistic plan that will help you reach the goal that you’ve set. Two suggestions: first, enlist the help of an objective outsider who can help you diagnose the problem (I humbly offer myself as one option, a good friend could be another) second, design a plan that involves small, achievable, and concrete steps.

Here are a few examples:

  1. Let’s say you’ve gained 10 pounds over the past year, and you’re determined to lose them in 2026. All the determination in the world is not going to lead to success unless you know where you tend to go off track and can make the adjustments that would be easiest (and most realistic) to make.  Relatively small changes can, over the course of a year, lead to impressive results. Too many late night pints of ice cream? Reducing your intake by just a pint a week could result in losing those 10 pounds by the end of December.
  2. You haven’t spent enough time with the kids, and pledge to correct that in the coming year. That’s too vague.  To formulate one that will work, look at what has gotten in the way of spending the time you should (e.g. exhaustion at the end of the workday, or the weekly softball game that you play with your buddies every Saturday afternoon) and then determine a small step that can move you in the desired direction (setting aside an hour on Monday evenings, before exhaustion accumulates over the course of the week, or having the kids come with you to the game 30 minutes early so you can toss around the ball with them).
  3. You’ve been unhappy in your job for the past three years but can’t seem to begin a process that will result in forward movement. What gets in the way? You might feel that the process is going to require more energy than you have, or you’re not sure where to begin, or you doubt that the effort required will lead to a worthwhile result. Or all of the above. Generally, people are discouraged from changing when they look at their goal and feel that it’s way too far off, or the route there is too complicated, or it’s futile to even try (I am contacted weekly by several people who’ve sent out hundreds of resumes and have gotten NO response). If your effort isn’t yielding results, try a different approach! Begin by taking one step in the direction you want to move and then reassess. The path that leads all the way to your goal may be obscure at the starting point, but will become clearer as you move forward one step at a time. So you might pledge to read a book on career change, or talk to a friend who’s successfully gone through the process in order to stimulate some new ideas. Or even better yet, make an  initial appointment with me to get an expert diagnosis on what’s not working and why, and some fresh ideas on how to reinvigorate the process and get to success.

A final suggestion: there’s certainly a good chance that you’ll “fall off the wagon” at some point in the process. Forgive yourself – we’re all fallible – and get back on track as soon as possible. It may take longer than you’d like to reach your goal, but that’s a whole lot better than waking up a year from now and realizing that you made no progress at all!