With the new year right around the corner, a lot of people are thinking about the dreaded New Year’s Resolution (NYR).  It seems, though, that the idea has become more of a caricature of personal development than honest change.  Most people come up with resolutions with little thought or commitment.  Then, when they flounder 3 days into the year, they give up on their NYR (and usually the entire idea of personal growth, too).

How can you make your promises stick this year and become a useful part of your personal growth?  One of the ways to make your NYRs work this year is to look at them as an opportunity to reinforce new, more helpful habits.  This is the premise of my book , the Book of Habits, which revolves around creating small, daily habits to get big change.  Here’s a 4–step process that can make your NYRs a powerful part of your personal growth process.

1. Decide what you want your life to be like on January 1, a year from now.  You can look at specific parts of your life or your life in general.  For example, let’s say that you want to be in better physical health in a year.  Decide now what your weight, diet, exercise regimen, etc. will be in a year. 
2. Develop the action steps that will get you to your goal in a year.  Break down the results that you want to see into the activities that will create the results.  The more you can break the goal down into its constituent pieces, the better 
3. On January 1, start working on developing one of the action steps as a habit.  In other words, take one of the action steps and start doing it everyday.  Don’t try to do everything at once – that often lead to frustration.  In our physical health example, it’s hard to change your eating patterns, exercise habits, and lifestyle choices all at once.  It’s easier to begin with a small part and create a new habit around that. For example, you could start by putting 20 minutes of physical activity (even walking around the block) into your daily routine.
4. Throughout the year, once you’ve ingrained an activity as a habit, add a new habit into your routine.  As I wrote in the Book of Habits, it takes about a month to ingrain a habit.  Just looking at your physical health resolution, that means that you could create 12 new habits regarding physical health over the course of the year.  That would definitely move you to the goal that you created in step 1.

There is no secret or trick to actually following through on your New Year’s Resolutions.  Simply make decisions to implement small, daily changes and you’ll see large cumulative effects.  This year, they won’t just be hollow promises, but rather the beginning of a new year and a new you!