by Drew Woodson

Created on: December 29, 2008

There are two keys to successful, guilt-free New Year's resolutions. First, is to stop promising yourself what you won't do. Instead make resolutions that promise what you will do. This simple paradigm shift not only helps you avoid the guilt that comes with common missteps. Second, make your resolution simple and action-based. These two tricks will help make you more successful in achieving real change in your life.

Our brains do not think well in the negative. We think more clearly about positive goals. For example, if your goal is to watch less TV, decide what you would like to do with the time when you are not watching TV (perhaps read more or learn a new art) and make that your goal. If your goal is to stop eating junk food, avoid negative thinking by promising yourself to eat more healthy foods, or simplify further by promising yourself to buy healthier foods.

Our brains respond better to concrete action plans than abstract resolutions. Think about everyone's goal to lose 10 pounds. The action required to achieve this goal is actually quite complex. If this were my resolution, I would need to change my diet, which means changing what I buy at the grocery store and how I cook. It means, possibly changing how i exercise or how long I exercise. Suddenly, my simple resolution, to trim 10 pounds seems more difficult to attain. The chances that my lifestyle will change in the ways that will help me achieve my goal are slim.

If I instead make my goal about just one of those lifestyle changes, I will have a much better chance of sticking to that plan. If I said, for example, I will work out for 20 minutes 4 times a week. I can realistically achieve that goal. Even better, I can make my goal to work out 20 times before February 1, that way, if I slip a few times in the first week, I can make up for it later.

The most important change in thinking is to start thinking about what you are doingyou did work out, you did buy that broccoli rather than what you haven't done. Just as positive thinking can help inspire you to change, negative thinking can create mental inertia. Guilt will grind your progress to a halt.

So take out your list of New Year's resolutons and start rewriting them in ways that make sense. Stay positive and keep it simple and you will find that positive change is not the hard part; it's staying positive through the missteps that determines our success.

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