Kyle MacDonald: I’ve already broken my New Year’s resolutions. How can I make them work?

If you're making New Year's resolutions, here are some things you can do to increase your chances of success. Photo / Getty

New year, new you? New Year’s is a great time to reflect on the year that’s been and make some goals for the year to come. But how can you make them more achievable? Kyle MacDonald explains.

There is research that shows that an incredibly low number - somewhere around 20 per cent - of resolutions that people make survive a few weeks of the New Year.

This has led some people to suggest that making the sorts of goals we tend to think of as resolutions, at this time of year, isn’t very helpful.

While it is natural at this time of year to want to reflect on the year that’s been and look ahead to what this year holds, that may or may not translate into useful actions and goals.

By far the biggest problem is that changing behaviour is hard - and of course, even more so with the sorts of things people tend to make resolutions about - the unhealthy, addictive or downright indulgent habits. Stopping smoking, drinking less, losing weight, exercising more.

It’s certainly a lot harder than making a decision to do so at a time when we feel full of enthusiasm for the idea of change, and under the influence of the slightly magical idea that a new year equals new beginnings.

For a lot of people, New Year’s celebrations also coincide with being away from work, maybe even away from home, and feeling generally more relaxed. Even hard goals can seem easy then.

If you are going to make goals, there are some things you can do to increase your chances of success.

Firstly, make sure it’s an achievable, and measurable goal.

“Be happier” might at first glance seem like a good goal, but happier than what, and how do we know that we are happier?

If you do want to make a “big” goal, say changing careers for instance, then break it down into small, manageable steps and make each of these a goal. Obviously, this will require some time and some planning.

It’s also vital to make your goals what we call “positively framed”, that is make it something that you’re going to do, not something that you’re going to stop doing, or worse deprive yourself of.

So rather than “I’m going to drink less”, instead focus on spending more evenings sober and getting more sleep, for instance. It’s much easier to focus on a goal if we’re getting something, as opposed to depriving ourselves.

And perhaps, where most people fall over is they fail to get support and find ways to be accountable.

This tends to mean being open with those close to us, partners for instance, and getting support might mean seeing a nutritionist, a counsellor or just asking a friend to go walking with us.

It might mean hiring a personal trainer or keeping a log of day-to-day efforts.

Any change is hard enough without doing it on your own, and I think it’s why groups for the most common behaviour changes are so common, think AA, or Weight Watchers.

It’s hard to hold ourselves to account.

So, I don’t think people shouldn’t make New Year’s resolutions, just that we should take those fleeting, enthusiastic thoughts that flit through our mind on December 31, and make sure we do a little more work to get the goal right and increase our chances of success.