It hasn’t yet been a whole month since you made your New Year’s Resolutions, but already you’re finding that it’s difficult to keep up with the promises you made yourself. Exercise? Never heard of it. Vegetables? Does my corn flake cereal count? Don’t be the person who gives up too soon. Improving your lifestyle may be difficult, but it will pay off next New Year when you’ll be able to boast on social media about how awesome 2018 was. Read on for some tips that will help you keep up your resolutions all the way to December and beyond.

1. Link your goals

Often times, the key to reaching a goal is to connect it to another, related goal that is more specific. For instance, if your goal is to get better grades, revise your goal to be: I will decrease time spent on my phone by one hour each day, and I will attend all of my lectures each week. Splitting and linking your goals in this manner will increase the probability that you will follow through with both actions. This concept is backed by research from recent studies by Dr. John Norcross of the University of Scranton.

2. Announce your plan

Another way to ensure that you keep up with your New Year’s resolutions is to publicly announce your goals. Tell your friends, tell your family, or post your resolutions on social media. Ask for support in your goals, and have others promise to call you out when you appear to be slipping away from your plan. This method is especially helpful, because many people have no problem disappointing themselves, but disappointing friends and family is much more difficult.

3. Rephrase your resolution

Sometimes our goals are intimidating. In order to make them easier to accomplish, rephrase your goals into something less nerve-wracking. For example, if you live off-campus and are struggling to manage your finances, instead of making a goal to create a budget and stick with it, make a goal to spend an hour each week dealing with the frustration of creating and utilizing a budget. This approach is ideal because it allows for mistakes and missteps that lead to long-term learning. Instead of being forced to perfect a budget right away, you can obtain budgeting skills slowly over time, which assures that you will stick with your New Year’s resolution over a long period of time.

4. Identify the source of the problem

In many instances, New Year’s resolutions don’t tackle the source of the issue at hand. For instance, some people resolve to get more sleep because they are always feeling tired during the day. However, lack of sleep itself is not the issue at hand. Maybe these people stayed up so late because they were watching television. Instead of then resolving not to watch television late at night, the source of the issue of watching television late at night must be identified. These people may stay up watching television because they feel like they need time to themselves to relax during the day. After identifying this fact, a New Year’s resolution can be made to set aside one hour each day (not close to bedtime) where they can spend time relaxing (in a productive manner).

5. Give your resolutions time

Experts estimate that it takes an average of 66 days for an act to become a habit. This means that it can take up to the end of a semester, maybe longer, before your resolution becomes a behavior that is automatic and comfortable. With this knowledge in hand, it is important to persevere and not give up on your goals. Do not become disheartened when achieving your goal is still difficult after a few weeks time-- this experience is to be expected and cannot be the reason you give up on your resolutions.