I will admit it. Like so many who have done a miserable job at keeping my New Year’s resolutions, I am a bit cynical about making them anymore. In the past, I even made a resolution to never make another New Year’s resolution again. But this year, I am making them anyway. Why? Because we make resolutions for a good reason. Because everyone needs a fresh start to being happier and healthier. Because some change will do all of us good. Because I spent some time figuring out why resolutions sound so good at some point, say January 1st ; but by the 25th it is just a list of well-intentioned yet unfilled dreams. By March, it’s all a blur. I can barely remember what I resolved just a few months earlier.

The cycle seemed hopeless … until I decided to change it!

I discovered that the issue was not my resolve to implement healthy habits and positive changes. That part is great! The problem that had to be addressed was accountability and proper planning. With the upcoming year just around the corner, now is just as good a time as any to take stock of your life and the vision you have for the new year. If you love them, hate them, or don’t like to make them, here are some tips to make it work in 2013.

Write It All Down

It helps to write all of this down so it’s harder to just forget and give up. It might also be encouraging to write down why a particular goal is important. For example, if my goal is to quit smoking in 2013, then adding a note next to that goal like “ … because I need to take care of my health,” or “because I don’t want my kids breathing second-hand smoke,” might help.

This way, it is really easy to remember why the resolution was made in the first place. Also, writing a long laundry list of resolutions trying to implement too much change all at once has been ineffective in the past. I suggest keeping the list short.