• Positive resolutions are far easier to stick to than negative ones. For example, giving up smoking is a negative but, if you plan two trips to the cinema every week, you are already cutting down on smoking because you can’t smoke in the cinema.
• Instead of giving up chocolate you can resolve to eat it only at certain times – Saturday night is chocolate night but never any other time.
• Write your resolutions down – those who write down their goals have a far greater chance of achieving them.
• Tell your friends what you plan to achieve by talking about your resolution, not only in person but also on your blog, website or social networking pages.
  
• Avoid triggers for negative action. If you compulsively check your emails, turn your computer and phone off during certain hours so that you have to make a conscious decision to turn them back on to check, rather than just constantly monitoring. If a hard day’s work means a large drink, find something else to do that you enjoy.
• Reward yourself for achieving even small steps. A cigarette costs around 30p so put that much in your piggy bank each time you resist temptation. It doesn’t sound a lot but if you smoke 20 a day, it could add up to £2,100 in a year – enough for a decent family holiday!
  

Psychiatrists tell us that resolutions are all about habits and that you need to trick your brain into believing that your new behaviour is usual. Apparently you need to do something around 15 or 20 times without a break before the brain accepts it as normal, so the management of your time, schedules and work are all things that will help you achieve your resolutions.

At this point it’s probably only fair that I share my own resolutions, some of which you will see relate to the issue of time. I have resolved:

• To develop Planning for Life so that it provides me with every Friday off
  
• To implement a phased fitness training programme to complete the Great North Run in under two hours
  
• To spend more time with my family
  
• To organise pre-planned holidays which are inviolate
  
• To raise £7,000 for Mary’s Meals to provide a kitchen for a school in the Third World 
• And last, but not least, to change the world!
  

Finally, a book recommendation – Changing for Good by James O Prochaska et al is, to quote, “a revolutionary six-stage programme for overcoming bad habits and moving your life positively forward”. The great thing about this book is that unlike so many it is not just airy-fairy emotive stuff but a process developed out of extensive scientific research and study.

Jeremy Deedes