You know how it goes: you set a goal, you start strong, and in two months, you stop. The initial burst of energy settles into complacency, and before you know it, you’re back to doing the status quo. What went wrong, you ask yourself? You really wanted to achieve (fill in the blanks), but you just lost steam by February.

New Year’s resolutions can set the goal maker up for failure. According to one New York Times article, four out of 5 people who create new years resolutions will end up breaking them. The article referenced a poll by time management firm Franklin Covey: will break the resolutions because they say they have too many other things to do, while 33% of respondents say they’re just not committed to the goal.

Maximizing your New Year’s resolutions means doing this year what didn’t work last year. According to experts, the real problem with making New Year’s resolutions is that people make the wrong resolutions. What people lack is a specific goal, instead of just a general desire to change.

Here’s some suggestions to help keep you on track when you set out to achieve your New Year’s resolutions:

1. Start small: don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you start small, and work incrementally, you’ll have more success in working towards achieving your goal.
2. Hammer out a specific goal: saving money and losing weight are nice things, but what does that really look like in the real world? The more specific that you can get in creating your resolution, the more focused you’ll become. it’s really difficult to just have general desires without that focus, because it’s that focus that burns that image in our minds. The clearer that image is, the easier time it will be for you to move forward towards it.
3. It’s all in the details: instead of toward some general sense of “weight loss,” “quitting smoking” or “saving more money.” if you could hammer out a specific goal, say “I’ll save $50 a week in a special savings account, and will have it transferred automatically each Friday,” that dramatically increase your chances of conquering it.
4. Be realistic: you should plan for them, because they can, and will, happen. You may have the best intentions of getting to the gym at 6:00 AM, but realistically, there are going to be mornings were you just don’t feel it getting up to do it. If you leave room for the very real possibility that you might not work towards your goal on certain days, don’t fret, but keep going.
5. The long haul: If you can keep going and build endurance towards achieving your goal, even through the thick and thin, your strengthening your ability to see through to the completion of your goal. If you can’t see your goal in the long-term, it makes it harder to work towards it in the present. Getting comfortable with working towards your goal in the long haul will make achieving it that much sweeter. If you can develop a relationship with your goal, instead of trying to blindly master it and achieve it in a fixed amount of time, it can make it much easier for you to pace yourself.
6. Get support: whether it’s friend or family, or your dog, at the support you need to be able to achieve your goal. Do you need new gym equipment or outfits? Do need to schedule appointment with a financial planner? Are there other resources, including time, money, mental energy, that you need to get or summon up? Any good athlete prepares vigorously for competition, and goalsetting is kind of similar. You want to be able to have what you need and know the lay of the land to be able to compete with yourself. Get the support you need, and your journey towards goal resolution will have more of a chance of success. Also, support yourself, because too often, it’s hard for us to give ourselves a pat on the back.
7. Track your progress: whether you like to journal, give yourself gold stars, or use a smart phone app, track your progress and get an idea of where you are at through the course of your goal. It’s important to get a sense of where you’re at, where you’re going, and where you came from. If you can see what you’ve already accomplished, this can be gratifying and can inspire you to keep going. Numbers always help, and guys like tracking numbers, so find a cool app and get going.

New Year’s resolutions don’t have to be thrown by the wayside by February. If you truly value something, and want to see it appear as a change in your life, you can have it. If you want it bad enough, you can have it. Try to follow some of these steps to help support you in your journey, and see your goal become reality sooner than you think.

If we’re honest with ourselves, sometimes the very act of making New Year’s resolutions cause the very stress they’re trying to reduce. Trying to commit to a workout schedule, or any other schedule, sometimes sets us up for failure when we burn through the initial motivating stage and land into the same stuck place we started from.

Learning how to lower the stress in our lives – and not add to it with unsuccessful New Year’s resolutions – is the goal for more successful stress management.

Taking goals step by step, and successful planning, are keys to minimizing resolutions-based stress. Being realistic about your goals (practicing what’s feasible) will help succesful achievement of your New Year’s goals. Knowing that maybe a fine six-pack might look great, but how attainable is that, considering the real day-today stressors you deal with in you life?

Great planning goes a long way in goal setting stress management. Knowing what resources you’ll need is key: time, money, support, psychic investment, etc. Being prepared for the steep hike helps when you’ve got all the gear you’ll need when the inevitable speed bumps (or road blocks) appear, including waning motivation levels.

Scheduling is another key to stress-free New Year’s resolution planning. Knowing exactly when, and how often, you’ll be advancing towards your goals is critical. Mapping out the time blocks on the calendar you use most, whether that’s your phone or physical calendar on your fridge, is helpful to knowing how to best use your time to achieve your new goals.

Finally, practice patience and compassion with yourself. Watch your aggravating self-critic trying to undermine your efforts and shoot you down. Remember: the path is also the goal. Most goals are successfully learned and practiced over the course of time, so try to see yourself advancing through the process, not specifically towards goal attainment. It’s the path that’s important to remember, and it’s less likely you’ll quit along the road if you can focus there a little more.