By Rosalind Cummings-Yeates

A New Year means new opportunities, a new perspective and, usually, new resolutions. Something about all that newness just drives many people to concoct outlandish goals that they have little hope of accomplishing. Everybody wants to lose weight, but why set a rigid plan of losing 10 pounds every week? Of course you’d like a promotion, but how realistic is it to expect to take nine months to obtain a career that takes years to achieve? Setting yourself up for disappointment and failure is not what the New Year’s supposed to be about. Here are some tips on why New Year’s resolutions often fail and what to do to avoid these pitfalls:

1. Unrealistic expectations
It sounds really impressive to plan to run a marathon, but if you’ve never run beyond the end of your road, you’re probably setting yourself up for failure. Start with small steps. Go jogging around the block or ask a friend to join you every once in a while so you can motivate each other. Make these specific, attainable steps your resolutions and you will encourage yourself to grow towards your bigger goals.

2. No support
If you want to stop smoking, hanging around friends that smoke will not help you. Taking steps toward any lifestyle change will require that you surround yourself with like-minded people. This doesn’t mean that you must ditch all your old friends, but it helps to locate someone who will guide you along your new path. Without this, it’s easy to slip back into your old ways.

3. Relying on other people
It’s great to have someone to work out with or to learn salsa dancing with, but if you’re pinning your success on that other person participating. Try and develop goals that you can accomplish by yourself where ever possible. If you know you hate to go to the gym alone, don’t make working out three times a week your goal. Instead, get some exercise equipment for your home and aim to work on it three times a week. You can’t control other people’s actions but you can control your own.

4. Not preparing yourself
Don’t just make resolutions without thinking them through. If you want to learn to surf and you live in London, map out how you’ll get to the nearest beach. If you’ve focused on turning totally vegan and haven’t thought about the changes in your food budget, body image and the restrictions such a diet may place on you socially, you may be headed for trouble. Look at your resolutions from every angle before committing to them.

5. Allowing yourself to be pressured
If your boyfriend wants you to lose 20 pounds, don’t make a resolution to lose weight just because he wants you to. You have to desire a change for yourself or it won’t work. Your parents may want you to take an MBA but if you’re really not interested, you’ll probably drag your feet until the year is over.

6. Not believing in yourself
If you make a resolution to take evening classes every year and each year, you come up with an excuse not to, you’re probably sabotaging yourself. If you don’t believe you can accomplish a particular goal, you won’t. Only make resolutions that you can see yourself doing.

7. Unclear goals
Make specific resolutions. Don’t just say you’ll lose weight, include your monthly goals as well as the overall amount that you’d like to lose. Only saying you want to get less stressed leaves a lot of room for failure. Set up a detailed relaxation plan, month by month. The clearer you are, the easier it’ll be for you to reach your goals.

8. Being too rigid
Just because you aimed to earn your black belt by July and you just started karate lessons in June, doesn’t mean you should give up. Resolutions can be adjusted. The point is to make steps toward your goals, if you don’t make all of the steps, that’s okay. There’s always next year.