With the end of January on the horizon, your new year resolution may have been faltering. To those of you who are still staying strong, congratulations. Keeping and following through to your New Years resolutions takes a lot of determination and willpower. But for those of you who are currently struggling, have broken, or are having that cheat meal between your weight loss workout routines, this article may be worth a read.

To keep your New Years resolutions, you and you must be able to excel at making a change for yourself and recognize how amazing your life will be if you stuck around to being healthier. The trick is to not procrastinate. Typically procrastination can be a pitfall for many and making excuses and saying that you have other tasks or commitments just make it all worse.

Now I know that we all have lives to fulfill, we may have homework to do, club duties to perform, extracurricular activities to fulfill but we should always make time for completing tasks to our new years resolutions. I am sure if you heard of making SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-based in case you forgot) but keeping your resolution involves much more than using this method. Understanding what SMART is is one thing but you have to have to find ways to apply the principles of smart to your goals for 2017. “Remember, it is not the extent of the change that matters, but rather the act of recognizing that lifestyle change is important and working toward it, one step at a time,” says psychologist Lynn Bufka, PhD.

You can apply Bufka's remark to what you can do in your life. Simply putting time aside from your schedule to accomplish it to that specific directive can help you advance even further. If you want to become more technical to see the progress, you can start a mini diary or a journal detailing what you have done throughout your week. Try to track things like: how many hours have you spent, goals before the end of the session, what you have done, or a 1 to 5 rating on how productive you were.

With applying this to your new year's resolution, lets say that you cannot make a practice session or unable to commit to learning a language for a certain week since you are gone on a retreat; try to commit for at least half time on days that you do not feel like doing it. Committing a small amount of time is better than not doing anything at all. One good trick that I tell myself is that if I do not have the motivation to do something that I do not really want to do, I usually might spend at least 10 minutes on it since it is better than nothing. Sometimes you might want to spend more time on it just to see how far you can go.

I highly recommend reading this best selling book, The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. This book is highly recommended because it teaches the reader hot to apply good habits to change your live. The book was written by a Pulitzer prize winning journalist, Charles Duhigg, who wanted to analyze and write about the scientific power of making good habits and how to follow up with them. What sets this book a part is that the book's philosophy believes that the building blocks of success, health, productivity, and wellness is, at its core, based on habit. While other self-help books typically follow a plan to improve one's life by offering a set plan or activities that someone might follow, this book is different because it only helps those who are struggling to commit to following something and initiating change; something like a New Year resolution.

Another really good book that is worth checking out and I highly recommend it if you are the type of person who makes resolutions and completely blows it off or is continually skipping and not putting time into keeping track of your progress is Get your Sh*t Together: How to Stop Worrying about What You Should Do So You Can Finish What You Need to Do and Start Doing What You Want to Do. This book is like a more strict version of the Power of Habit but instead of teaching the reader how to use and apply everyday habits to build on what they want; this book focuses more on the problems that the reader may has that prevents him or her from achieving their yearly goals. Written by Sarah Knight, the best-selling author of The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck, this book sort of builds up on a no fucks given mentality on how to shape up your life for the better. This book tackles the issues of avoidance and apathy that one feels towards the things that he or she needs to get done and tells you to do it.

Also if you are one of those people who do not really feel like changing their life for the better and are stuck in the vicious cycle of insecurity, doubt, and depression, please take some of these principles that have been given by a reddit user to apply to your day to day routine. I can summarize this below:

Rule 1: No Zero Days: What is a 'Zero Day'? A zero day is a day where you do not do anything that contributes to that goal or dream of who you want to be. Please make a point to promise that you have to do something to contribute to your goals. If you did not have any time to go to the gym, do some pushups, sit-ups, or crunches at home before you hit the sack. Any little thing that you do can mean the difference between something and nothing.

Rule 2: Be Grateful to the 3 Yous: The Three yous are the Past you, the present, you, and the future you. If you are feeling bad or depressed, try to think of something that the past you did like help someone up from a fall on the curb or held the door open for someone and getting recognition for it. If you feel like not going to run a block, then think what would the present you do for the future you.

Rule #3: Forgive Yourself. Okay no one is perfect. If you said that you were going to get up at 5 AM to run 3 miles and woke up at 9 AM after hitting the snooze button a dozen times, do not fret. Everyone makes mistakes. If you are not seeing any improvement on your tests, do not feel disappointing or mad at yourself. Feeling self pity would only complicate things which would make you less productive. Please find it in your heart to forgive yourself for things that did not go your way.

Rule #4 Exercise and Books. If you exercise, you will release endorphins into your brain which will cause you to feel better about yourself and helping your future self. However, exercise is not the only thing that is going to make you a better you. Grab some good books on hand that is guaranteed to help you live a better life. Along with the books mentioned in this article other good titles are: Life as Sport: What Top Athletes can Teach You About How TO Win at Life, You are a Badass, and From Good to Great. All of these are great reads and can help you become a better person.

Hope this article helps you, the reader, in making good choices. Feel free to bookmark this article if you want to come back to it or if you need a bit more motivation.