How to help achieve your new year resolutions

Ian Hamilton has some practical advice on how to set goals and succeed in meeting them

‘No matter how well-intentioned you are about your new year resolution, unfortunately most of us won’t make it into February’ (Getty)

There’s nothing transformative about the start of January. So, although traditionally this is the day we collectively resolve to exercise more, eat better or change other habits, we could do this on 364 other days in the year.

However, while there is no mystical advantage to 1 January, there is the knowledge that you’re changing something at a time when millions of others are also embarking on this journey. New-year’s resolutions can bring a feeling of renewal – out with the old and in with the new.

This year more than most, it is understandable that many of us will be thinking about our health and will want to make a change. No matter how well intentioned you are about your new-year resolution, unfortunately most of us won’t make it into February having succeeded. We know from research and behavioural modelling that it’s far easier to make a change than stick to it.