Successful New Year Resolutions

Every January, many of us get excited about making resolutions. Lack of willpower is people's top excuse for not following through. The common resolutions involve behavioural changes. These include eating better, working out more often, or smoking less. Willpower—tenacious self-control—is necessary for reaching goals, many believe.

There may be some mental muscle corresponding to willpower. But that's not the only means for creating better habits. You can also achieve your goal by changing your environment.

Let's say you want to stop snacking in bed at night. Changes that would make it harder for you to keep doing that include:

* No longer keeping your favourite munchies in the house.

* Keeping them, but storing them in a time-lock cabinet.

* Altering your bedtime routine. This can subvert the connection between snacking and reading or watching TV.

You don't need to steel yourself to resist temptation. You can re-engineer the conditions in which temptation arises. The same goes for decisions to start doing something, such as blogging twice a week. Instead of trying harder, make it easier to do.

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