Maybe it’s in the quiet moments in life. Or in crisis. Or during those odd days of purgatory between Christmas and New Year’s--when you’re just trying to figure out what does life mean, what day is it, and what are you even doing right now? What should you be doing right now?-- that the thought strikes you: “Hey, I want to change.”

These sudden new drives for change can be as grand and daunting as reinventing ourselves or as simple as breaking a habit (or starting a new one). Regardless, it seems these resolutions always have an expiration date that comes much faster than we anticipate. The beginning of January has everyone full with fervor, charging head first to reach their goals, but by March and April (and for some of us, much sooner) our passion dwindles. Real, everyday life kind of pushes our resolutions to the side, and more often than not the new year is approaching once more and our resolution from last year is being recycled.

But we can accomplish our resolutions and it’s not as difficult as our past experiences would have us believe.

Step Number One: Picking Your Resolution

The most crucial part to accomplishing your goal is to choosing the goal itself. So often, we find ourselves reaching for the near-impossible and setting the bar so unbelievable high we practically doom ourselves to failure right off the bat.

Be realistic. I’m not saying you shouldn’t challenge yourself, but remember that your entire life is not solely dedicated to your resolution. You’re still going to have school, and work, and family, and you’re still going to have all the responsibilities that go with them. Time and energy sucking responsibilities, that is. You can always exceed your goal, but start off realistic to get the ball rolling!

Step Number Two: Committing to Your Resolution

Once you’ve figured out what you’d like to change and to what degree, the next step is the process of making it happen! To do that, you have to be committed, because like I’ve said, life is busy and introducing new lifestyles or changes isn’t always easy.

Reflect. Think about why you picked this goal? What pulled you to want to change? How important is it to your life as a whole? What’s the big picture here? Envision what you want you and your life to resemble with this new change. If your resolution is to put more effort into your studies, what will be the effects of your reinvigorated love for academia? Will you procrastinate less? Will that in turn make you less stressed?

(If your resolution is to lose weight in order to better enjoy all that life has to offer, I’m just going to redirect you here for a perfect starter kit!)

Or maybe you want to be more outspoken, less shy. How will you benefit from voicing your opinions more? Do you want to become a better leader? Do you want to be more social and extroverted? What’s driving you to make this change? How do you see the future you?

Reflect on the past experiences that inspire you to tackle this goal? What effect did they have on you? Are there things you wish you could have handled differently? Things you wish you’d taken a chance on or instances where you wished you had tried something new? Focus on all the why’s. If you can’t think of many reasons why this resolution is important to you, then it’s going to be hard to commit to it once the initial excitement wears off.

If you have investigated your own motives to pursue this change, you can be confident in your drive; you’re committed because it’s important. This resolution is more than just a half thought about goal. It’s important to the life you want to live and the person you want to be and that importance is going to help you accomplish your resolution.

Step Three: Have Support

Tell your close friends what your resolution is! Tell them all about your Step Two. Let them in and show them why it’s important and how they can help. The people who love you want to raise you up and they’ll be more than happy to aid you in whatever way they can. Maybe it’s a simple as venting to them about how hard it is to stay focused on your intention, or let them know they should be on you if you’re watching too much Netflix and not getting your work done. They’ll help point out your growth along the way and it’ll further inspire you! Not to mention they’ll be there to help you when you fall down, because you will fall down, which leads us to step four...

Step Four: Accepting Setbacks

You’re going to screw up. Maybe a little, maybe a lot, but it’s going to happen. There are days you’re going to fall off the wagon, you’ll fall back into old ways. It’s okay. Just because you have one bad day, or a week, or however long, doesn’t mean you throw all your hard work to the wayside.

Having a few setbacks is normal and should be expected when making a change in your life. Plan for them! Mentally prepare yourself for when you eventually misstep and figure out how you’re going to get back on track! Maybe you don’t do the readings for class one week, or you find yourself constantly letting people interrupt you, or you didn’t run the full route. Maybe you completely forgot about your intention and haven’t paid much thought to your resolution in awhile. Whatever it may be, get back on that horse! Refocus on why it’s important to you. Remember why you started this challenge in the first place. If you have to baby step your way back to getting on track, that’s okay too! Change is gradual and different for everyone.

Give yourself some leeway to mess up; you’re not perfect.

Step Five: Allow Yourself to Change

This one might seem obvious. I mean, that’s the whole point of a resolution right? But sometimes we get set in our ways, maybe we self sabotage, or we don’t fully embrace the growth we’ve achieved. Or your realistic goal wasn’t nearly as realistic as you thought and you have to alter your resolution, knock it down a couple notches. Or hey, maybe you tackled your resolution in early March and you’re striving on to bigger and better things!

And maybe, what our aspirations were at the beginning of January aren’t the same come some months down the road. Maybe the reasons behind our goals become insignificant in light of our growth. Perhaps circumstances have made it impossible to continue to pursue your resolution. There are cases where letting go of our resolutions is a good thing. As they say, the journey is the destination.

So, with the new year kicking off, let’s go out there and make some change. Change yourself, your life, and the world around you! Figure out how you want to grow and why, and most importantly learn as much as you can on your journey! It’ll have its ups and downs, its twists and turns, but you’ll leave this year a lot wiser! Good Luck!