Sticking to New Year's resolutions is hard. Today's society even laughs about it. People expect to fail. And because of this, it has become no big deal. Even if our resolution is something that we really want to stick to, we quickly find ourselves giving up and failing. But there is one really simple thing that we can all do and change that makes it so much easier to accomplish what we want. I have found that it is all mental and that changing your mindset, the way you think about things, can make it exponentially easier to accomplish what you want. Here are some simple changes to your mindset relating to these resolutions that will help.

Set an end goal, rather than a strict rule or "resolution".

New Year's resolutions never end well. Honestly, have you ever met anyone who has actually followed through completely with theirs? Yet, each and every year, all of us seem to think it's a good idea to make a new one. Most of the time, the new resolution, is in fact, the exact same New Year's resolution that we made the previous year and the year before that. There are several major reasons why these fail over and over again, almost dependably. This year I resolved to not make a resolution but rather set some new goals. This will be my second year of doing so, and I am very happy to announce that up to this point, I have been very successful in my journey towards those goals.

You aren't taking away from your life, you're adding to it.

Many people focus on cutting back, or completely cutting out things from their lives. This can come in the form of taking out food, like all the zillions of people who go on extreme diets each year. Rather than focusing on taking something out of your life, try going at it from a different mindset. Add instead of taking away. when people feel as if they are subtracting things from their lives, it is so much easier to focus on that than it is the positive things that you are gaining. Remember to focus on adding positive qualities to your life, rather than letting the hardships and negative things drag you down.

Stay motivated by setting smaller goals.

Humans are such interesting creatures. We need goals, things to work towards, a purpose for getting out of bed each and every day. If we don't have any reason to get up each day, why would we? Yet, even though we crave a purpose and need goals to work towards, if we sense that achieving those goals is too difficult, then we will just abandon them all together and give up. Motivation is an important, yet fickle thing for us humans, and we must try our best to protect it. Setting smaller goals or less concrete goals will help you to stay motivated. Rather than saying that you want to lose 20 pounds, say that you would like to get fit, and stay fit. Rather than saying that you want to go to the gym 6 days a week (come on, we all know that this is nearly impossible), say that your goal is to go at least 4 times a week. By doing this, you won't get discouraged on the weeks which it is just not possible to make it all 6 days, but you will be proud of yourself on the weeks that you do.

Remember that not every day is going to be perfect.

The biggest thing that we all hear throughout January and February is how people are already breaking and have broken their New Year's resolutions. How depressing and sad is that? The vast majority of people don't even make it a whole month. One reason why this may be goes along with staying motivated. Once we stray away once from these strict laws (excuse me, resolutions, my bad.) that we set for ourselves, we give up. In our minds, as well as in the "mind" of popular culture, we have already lost. This mindset is flawed. It is so important to not get discouraged by one, two, or three days, heck, even a bad week! There are 365 days and 52 weeks in a year, why would you let a few days or even one week affect all the rest? Don't hate on yourself when you make a mistake because it is important to stay positive. Just say that you will continue to improve and that tomorrow is a new day.