Whenever we hear or speak of New Year, what usually comes into mind is making resolutions. A lot of people think of all sorts of New Year’s resolutions in the hope of making a good start or changing from their bad habits in the past years. Also sometimes known as New Year’s list, these resolutions can either be physical, emotional, spiritual, etc.

But even as the new year can promise new hope for a person, one may ask whether New Year’s resolutions really do work. Truth be told, but most New Year’s resolutions actually don’t. Let’s take the resolve to give up on eating chocolate, for instance. While it may be easy for someone who has been a chocolate lover all these years to come up with this decision, it may only quickly disappear into the air not because you chose something seemingly impossible, but because you may not have an idea what it really means to be resolute. Or say, you want to quit smoking, but can’t help but puff up as many cigarette sticks as you can. Another example is when you want to become more productive at work, but spend a huge portion of your time slacking off.

You can only say when your decision is resolved if you have made a clear commitment to a particular course of action or if you have set a specific plan of action to it. This explains why a lot of New Year’s resolutions don’t really work, as there is just a lack of clear commitment or a specific action plan. Sure, you can tell yourself how you want to make yourself better or do away from a bad habit for the new year, but every time you do a thing that goes the other way from your resolution, then you are only pushing yourself away not just from your goal but also from yourself as well. Keep in mind that nothing can get in the way of what you want if you really want to get it.

Moreover, if you believe that your resolution is just the same as your result, then your specific action plan can help make your resolution a reality. A specific action plan helps you to achieve what you want to happen from your decision and usually includes the following considerations such as when, where and how often you will do it; the resources you will need; the people who can keep you accountable; the price you have to pay if you cant accomplish it; the rewards you will experience throughout the way; your benchmarks and interim deadlines as well as how you want to keep up with the outcome once you will have successfully accomplished it.

For you to achieve significant change, you need to have a good deal of commitment, reflection and planning. And to make your resolutions a reality, you need to see them true, plan them true and do so to really make it true.

But if you really want to change your life for the better, why wait for New Year? The decision to make that choice as well as when you will act on it depends on you. And the best time to make a decision is when you are truly committed to a decisive outcome. If you really want to change, you do it when you want it – you don’t have to wait for New Year to make it happen. The decision to make a change, or keeping up with a significant outcome, does not rely on the turn of a new calendar year - change depends on you and you alone.