By Whitney Eaton, LCSW, Courier & Press, Jan. 3, 2017 –

As the New Year arrives, I often find myself in a time of reflection. It’s the time of year for beginnings and endings, looking forward and back.

What were my greatest achievements? What were some of my biggest challenges? How did I handle those challenges? What did I learn?

Looking back can help me plan what I want to accomplish going forward. What do I want to continue? What do I want to try? What should I avoid? Contemplating these things helps me with the ritual of setting a New Year’s resolution.

Setting a New Year’s resolution is usually an attempt at self-improvement. However, many New Year’s resolutions are hard to maintain and end in failure. It is really difficult to turn our good intentions into long-term success.

If you find yourself having trouble setting and maintaining your resolutions, here are some steps to help:

Try a “New You” challenge. Think of a different habit you could track each month. At the end of the year you will have twelve new habits. For example, in January you could resolve to eat more vegetables. In February you could get more organized by cleaning out closets.

Write your resolution down and post it somewhere that is often visible to you.  This will serve as a reminder of your goal and help you stay on track.  Also, writing down your goals makes it more likely for you to achieve them.

Make a plan. Sit down and write up a step-by-step plan to achieve your goal. Write down baby steps you can take each month.

Write down the barriers to maintaining your resolution. Next, find solutions to your barriers. If your resolution is to save more and have an emergency fund, a barrier might be that all of your paycheck goes to pay bills. A solution could be to sell some of the old toys your children are not playing with anymore to establish the emergency fund.

Have an accountability partner. Share your resolution with someone who will help you keep it. This could be a spouse, parent, co-worker or friend, someone who is going to remind you kindly that you don’t really need that $7.00 coffee.

Celebrate success. If you have achieved some of the small steps toward reaching your larger goal, celebrate!

Having trouble thinking of a resolution?  Use some of these prompts to find yours:

I’m going to do better at…
A new book I want to read is…
A bad habit I would like to break is…
A place I would like to visit is…
A good deed I would like to do is…
Something I want to do differently is…

Breaking habits or trying to form new ones can be difficult.  Practicing a few of these steps can help you stay on track with your goals and get the New Year off to a great start!