If I'm being honest, I'm not a huge fan of "New Years' Resolutions." However, I found myself at the end of last year with unresolved issues that I used the New Year to improve, and I would say that I've definitely found myself in a better place in 2015. So I decided to write up this guide on how to make a New Year's Resolution (or really any goal) that you'll want to keep and that you will reach with success!

1. Make it SMART.

If you're a total couch potato and want to run a marathon, it's going to be nearly impossible to say that you'll reach that goal by the end of January. But if you want to start running, that's a great resolution! You just need to make your goal SMART-

Specific: "I want to start running" is a great idea, but not the most specific. The mind likes to organize things, so making your goal more specific is a great way to drill it into your brain! If you want to start running, maybe you'd say that you want to run once a week or three times a week. That's a number that you can track and ensure that your specific goal is reached.

Measurable: Measurable and specific go hand in hand, since measurable means that either numbers or some qualitative measure that shows growth over time. You can measure that you ran once a week, or that you built up your stamina to run 2 miles straight, but you can't measure "I want to start running". See the difference?

Attainable: If you pick an impossible goal, you're not going to be motivated to keep going. If you aren't a runner but want to start up, don't expect yourself to run every single day or to run a 5k in the first week. If you set that you want to run a 5k that's being held in May, you have five months to build up strength and switch your goals around. That being said, don't underscore yourself either- if you're already running once a week but want to attain more, set your goal higher than your current standard so that you have something to reach for!

Realistic: This may be the most important of the five, because if your goal isn't realistic, you don't have anything to achieve! Make your specifics things that you can actually envision yourself doing, such as running twice a week or running two miles a day, rather than running a half marathon five days a week. To set goals, you have to know yourself and know what is realistic so that you can continue to push forward and then once you hit the goal, you can make another higher goal that's still realistic! So you can run that half-marathon, but the first goal has to be more realistic for a new runner.

Timely: To achieve your goals, you must also have a timeline. If you want to "start running", make it so that you're running twice a week for a month, giving yourself a timeline to achieve that goal in. Or sign up for a 5k in April, and then train so that you can finish it when April rolls around. Having a "deadline" for your goal doesn't mean the goal has to end, but rather sets it up in steps so that you can track your progress and continue to improve!

2. Make it something you truly want to do.

So maybe running isn't for you. I'll use my "resolution" from last year to explain this point- in 2014, I found that a lot of my friends were saying that I vented to them too much, and I realized towards the end of the year that I didn't want to be "that friend" who made their other friends their personal therapist. So in 2015, I decided that I wanted to improve how I expressed my distress, especially around my friends. For me, there were stakes in this resolution- if I didn't do it and I kept acting the way I was, I soon wouldn't have friends to turn to. So I focused in on what sort of problems I laid out to my friends, the tone I spoke to them, and the frequency in which I did it.

I spent a lot of 2015 working on more tangible parts of this goal, such as listening more in conversations instead of talking so that I could hear out someone else instead of continuing to have negative thoughts and words coming from myself. I truly wanted to not use my friends as therapeutic crutches, and this desire has helped me improve how I speak to them and how I talk about my problems. I'm not perfect at it yet, but the desire to improve my relationships with my friends and family has been a huge motivator to get me to think more about how I speak to people and how venting affects the people listening to me.

3. Have a cheerleading squad (yes, literally).

I've found that when I want to accomplish something, it's always more helpful if the people around me know about it. If you want to start running or eating healthier or thinking more positively, get your friends and family involved! They can help encourage the good habits and gently push you away from slipping up.

Make one of your more athletic friends your running buddy, or let your family know that you'd like to replace the weekly fried chicken with something a bit more healthy. Your support system will know what you want and will want it for you, too, so you'll have tons of encouragement to reach your goals!

4. You have to be forgiving of yourself.

So you missed a few runs? You aren't quite drinking as much water as you wanted or you still procrastinate on those lab reports?

It's OK. We're human.

Yes, self-improvement is amazing, and having and reaching goals is a great thing to do. But we aren't perfect. You will make mistakes, but what's important is how you react to those mistakes and how you move forward.

Again, I'll use myself -- over 2015, I found that I was getting a lot better at not venting to my friends as much and with as negative a tone as I used to. But I had a stressful fall semester, which set me back to some of my old habits. While I was certainly disappointed in myself, I knew that I had seen a person who handled their emotions around their friends better, and knew I could still be that friend even if I tripped up. So this is where SMART comes in- I needed to look into the "specific" part and see what specifically I could do better.

So I've done that more than once, and I'm still not perfect. But what's important to realize about goals is that achieving them is a journey, especially the ones that are less tangible in numbers. I've found that knowing myself and knowing what I need to do has been the most important in achieving my goals, and I will continue to set and reach goals, but I will also have days that I fail miserably. And that's all okay.

So as we ring in 2016 and you promise to be a "new you," just remember that it won't happen overnight and that you just have to move forward each day with the goal in mind and results will follow with hard work.

Happy New Year!