This time of year is fraught with most of us trying to change and everyone knows that resolutions we make in January sometimes don’t even last the month and if we are honest, some don’t even last the week.

How do we make them stick? There are a few tricks. If you want to eat healthier and lose weight, don’t quit your guilty pleasures all at once. Gradually eliminate things from your diet that you know you should get rid of.

You want to cut back on the amount of soda you drink, get it down to one a day. Once you are used to that, maybe one every other day. Make sure you are finding alternatives that are both good for you and that you also like. If you hate tea, but drink it instead, you are far more likely to drop back to old habits. You can do the same with unhealthy snacks. Find a healthier version you like and slowly phase it in while you faze the other one out.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are good habits. With that in mind, try tackling one bad habit at a time. If you want to quit smoking and get to the gym more in 2012, work on one first. Once you think you have it pretty much under control, and then go for the other. You can do the same even in within each resolution. When trying to quit smoking, think of all the places or times you smoke. Each week faze one out.

Most importantly, don’t let the slip-ups get you down. We are not perfect creatures; it’s why we have yearly resolutions. You might eat that whole piece of cake at the office party instead of the half one you had been planning on. Slip ups happen but if you keep at it, they should start to happen less often. If you are too hard on yourself, you can make the task daunting and seemingly impossible.

If it starts to feel like that anyway, find a smaller goal. If you just couldn’t get from 1 treat a day to 1 every other day, the try 2 days on, 1 day off. You can shorten the strides but as long as you continue making progress, you can see your goal through.