So, as the end of the year is coming up, and the new year dawns, it is almost time again to come up with a new years resolution. Before that though, I thought I’d share what I have learned about these things so far:

Make it a hard resolution to keep.
What’s the point of making a resolution which is easy? You should try to figure out what part of you you dislike the most, and make it your goal to change it. Nothing that requires a New Years resolution is easy. If it was an easy resolution, you should just do it instead of making it something you have to concentrate on for a year. This leads us to…

Don’t make more than one resolution.
It is already hard enough to try and stick with a single resolution, why make it harder by having more than one. If there is more than one thing you want to improve about yourself, it can always wait for next year. A single goal makes it a lot easier to remember and always make sure that you are trying to follow it.

Make the resolution specific.
The resolution should have a pretty specific goal. If it is not something you can easily point to, you will not be able to keep it. “I will be a better person” is not going to work. “I will make a stranger smile everyday” is specific. Your goal may be “be a better person” but the resolution should be “make a stranger smile everyday”. You need a goal which, everytime you fail at, you know that you have failed at it. So, while you may on occasion fail at your resolution, when you do, you realize it, after a year, you will have hit your goal. If you won’t make the goal, you will know it well before the year is up, in fact, you will know it weeks into it. Finally…

Don’t make the same resolution twice.
If you have failed at a resolution, don’t make it twice. Maybe 4-5 years down the line, when you have changed other aspects, you can try again. Making the same resolution year after year (I will lose weight), will just mean you fail the same resolution year after year.