The key is quality planning

You’ve probably already given up on your goals for the new year.

January 17th is National Ditch Your Resolutions Day. And after analyzing millions of recorded interactions, the fitness app Strava projected you’ll probably quit your resolutions on January 12th or January 19th.

Next time, try these tested techniques:

1. Make your goals SMART. They should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. 

2. Don’t just rely on motivation. There’s nothing wrong with it, but most of us grew up thinking it’s the only way to achieve goals. There are a lot of other methods, and one of the best is forming an automatic, conditioned response - a habit.

3. Set a clear trigger for habits. Without a clear trigger, at best you’ll probably just get an action you do every day for a time. In comparison, a habit is automatic. It bypasses day-to-day fluctuations in drive or emotion. Research by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer found that formalizing a cue increases the probability of attaining a goal. Write out your “if-then” plan.

4. Don’t do too much. There are two flavors of this. First, we tend to want to immediately change everything because we feel energetic in the moment. We want to get in shape, eat right, have better posture right now. That’s neither Achievable nor Realistic. 
   
   Second, if we’ve selected one behavior to focus on, we often start with high output. Think of the gym heroes on January 1st - they feel that if they harness this temporary motivation they’ll somehow burn off all the fat because they’re working out intensely for a week. Week 3 hits and, statistically, their motivation evaporates. 

5. Start small. Part of your planning should be ludicrously small actions. Try flossing two teeth. Try getting on the treadmill for a minute, or meditating for a few seconds. At this point you’re not focusing on output, just on making the start of the behavior automatic. According to the research of behavioral scientist BJ Fogg, you’ll greatly ensure a fully formed habit by starting tiny.
   
   It’s a hard thing to actually do because you’ll feel you aren’t doing anything. But weigh the likelihood of a long-term (potentially life-long) habit against crashing and burning in a few weeks. A few weeks of feeling a bit foolish is well worth it.

6. Access positivity and negativity. You might have heard the advice “find your why” - that’s a good start, but balance your optimism with a healthy dose of realism. Dr. Gabriele Oettingen found that subjects could actually be too optimistic, falling short of their goals when they didn’t plan around obvious pitfalls.
   
   So brainstorm everything that could go wrong and how to counter it all. Hate running in the rain? Find an indoor alternative or buy a raincoat.

7. Expand well. Tiny actions work, but they introduce a new problem - once you’ve established a habit you’ll need to grow it. Anytime you push too hard or too fast it’ll introduce a possible stutter step to the automatic nature of starting the habit. So plan out how you’ll expand so the habit doesn’t just collapse.
   
   One method is the gradual one. Add 2 teeth a day for flossing, or an extra minute or two on the treadmill. Another is slight modulation - do 3 types of meditation back to back for 15 minutes. Harnessing changing focus makes the step up in output easier, and research shows it can also significantly increase learning, useful if you’re working on a skill.
   
   And last is a 30 day challenge. These are great because they let you leverage the limited half life of motivation and combine it with gamified elements (achievements, a community, a preplanned progression, etc) to up your game.
   
   You might not be able to sustain such high levels for long, but you'll find if you do a challenge from the foundation of a basic habit, you'll return to the habit at naturally elevated output.

80 percent of New Year’s resolutions will fail – but you can always start again.

This time, before jumping in, plan it out.