It's February - Where's Your New Year's Resolution?

Instead of throwing in the towel on your New Year's resolution on February 1, take these steps to revitalize your decision to make a positive change this year. Whether the goal is to quit smoking, lose weight, reduce credit card debt, or just to dust the living room more often, you can still take steps to make it happen.

1. Reevaluate your resolution.

If you have already lost all hope of meeting your resolution, take a careful look at what your end goal was. If it is too lofty, you are setting yourself up for failure.

To help set a more realistic goal, you can use the S.M.A.R.T. approach; specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. Making sure your goal fulfills all of these adjectives will assist you with setting a more real-world goal. Most people don't go to the gym 7 days a week, so if that was your New Year's resolution, rethink it. Maybe starting with 3 days a week and adding a day every other month is attainable for you.

No one can meet unrealistic goals. Reevaluating the end goal and the steps to get to it may mean you still have a resolution in March.

2. Write it down and include a plan.

Writing down your New Year's resolution is a better start to keeping it then yelling it at the top of your lungs at midnight on January 1. The act of writing the goal down can be a commitment, and commitment is typically necessary for any worthwhile goal.

Once written, the resolution can be redrafted, checked in with, and given progress reports. If you want to quit smoking, write that on a piece of paper and put it on your pack of cigarettes, or lighter. It will serve as a constant reminder that smoking is a temporary habit that you do have the desire to change.

If you also write a plan to reach the end goal of your resolution, you will have step by step guide to help you focus on the small things that will lead to big success.

3. Make a strategy for slip ups.

This tip is repeated on various New Year's resolution keeping websites.

If your resolution involves making lifelong changes from bad habits to good habits, it won't happen in one month's time. There are going to be days when you just don't quite live up to your plan for meeting your resolution. By formulating a strategy for those slip ups, you will know, even in the midst of falling off the wagon, that you have a plan for getting back on.

4. Don't create a plan for failure.

Although having a way to get back on track is helpful in keeping resolutions, make sure it doesn't turn into an excuse for failure.

If your resolution is to pay off credit card debt in 2008, but your car brakes down and your dishwasher springs a leak, make an attempt at fixing those problems without ruining any progress you've made. And if you can't avoid using plastic for something, don't scrap the whole idea of ridding yourself of the debt. You may have to revert to tip 1 and reset your timelines, but just keep going.

5. Be kind to yourself.

Getting started is said to be the hardest part of making any changes. If you've at least attempted some of these tips for sticking to your resolution, then you are on your way to a changed person by the end of 2008.