Does this sound familiar? On December 31, brimming with resolve, you declare the goals you will achieve in the coming year. By January 31, resolve evaporated, you think, “New Year’s Resolutions? Ba humbug. What knucklehead came up with the stupid idea anyway?”

There’s a reason why less than 10 percent of people ever see their new year’s resolutions become reality. Sticking with resolutions entails change, and change is difficult. Heck, if it were easy to keep our resolve and stick with the changes we commit to making as we sip champagne New Year’s Eve, we’d all be free of credit card debt, meditating daily, looking svelte in our jeans and snacking on raw vegetables. Or at least I would (though, for the record, I’ve never had credit debt). The truth is, we all have the ability to keep our resolutions and make important changes in our lives. The problem is, we often lack the strategies needed to see them through.

I’ll be making a lot of changes in the coming year. Moving to a new country (Australia, here I come!), finding and setting up a new home and managing my business across two hemispheres. I’ll have to settle my four kids into new schools, make new friends and build new business networks. And in the midst of it all, I want to enjoy the process (i.e., not get stuck in overwhelm), stay fit(-ish), and finish the book I embarked upon in 2011.

Yep, when it comes to life changes, my cup runneth over! Of course, just because I’m a trained coach and motivational speaker doesn’t mean that I never get stuck myself. Or stressed. Or overwhelmed. But I’ve learned that using the right strategies in life can make the difference between optimism and overwhelm, productivity and procrastination, resignation and resilience … success and failure!

I hope that you will find the following strategies helpful in making the changes (and taking the chances) you want to make in the months ahead… purposefully, powerfully and courageously!

1.  Connect to core values.

Most people like the idea of looking better, getting richer and feeling happier. But if you are going to stick with a resolution that requires changing a long-held habit of thought or action, that resolution has to go beyond superficial desires and connect with your deepest values.

2.  Be specific.  

Resolutions like wanting to eat better, get fit, be happy, relax more or have better life balance are doomed to failure because they lack specificity. The more specific you are, the more likely you will succeed. Describe your resolutions in ways that allow you to track your progress and measure your success. Then, once you’ve formulated a specific goal, write it down and stick it in places where you will see it often.

3.  Design a supportive environment.

Your environment can be a powerful source of support. It can also be equally powerful in sabotaging your resolve if you don’t attend to it. Create a progress chart, enlist the help of family or friends to hold you accountable, hire a trainer, create a blog. Design your environment so it’s hard NOT to do what you resolved.

4.  Focus on one major resolution at a time.

Being ambitious is great. But trying to do too many things at once can make you so unfocused that you bounce around like Tigger. Besides, you have the rest of the year to pursue other goals and changes. Set yourself up for success with a single goal on January first. Start strong!

5.  View failures as temporary setbacks.

It’s not your failures that will define you in the year ahead, but how you respond to them. So the best route is to keep going while learning from your failures or mistakes. Social conditioning and homeostasis often lead people to believe that if they fail they should go home and never venture out again. Don’t make a failure mean more than it does. You tried something—it didn’t produce the result you wanted. Period. Learn, and then tap your inner John Wayne: saddle up and climb back on your horse!

6.  Focus on the process.

t;span>Psychologists have found that it can take up to 30 days to establish a new habit of thought or behavior. It’s easy to get caught up in the enthusiasm and think your resolution will be met within a week or two. Focus on becoming masterful in the activity or process that takes you toward your goal, rather than the goal itself. For instance, if you want to become more fit, focus on the process of being able to jog a little bit farther every time you go out, rather than being able to run a marathon. If you stick with the process and embrace the learning that the process entails, you will meet with success.

7.  Do one thing every day.  

Make a commitment that every single day you will do one thing, however small it may seem, in the direction of your vision. Okay, so you didn’t get to the gym like you’d planned. How about 5 minutes of stretching? Life rewards action. And while some actions may not seem all that significant, when you take any action that serves your greatest good, it sends a message to your subconscious that you are still in the game, and that change is still in progress (however slowly).

So as you step into the new year, remember that life is short. Years pass quickly, and the best changes you can make for yourself in the year ahead, whether in what you do or how you do it, will require perseverance, courage and focused effort. The good news is that they will not demand anything that you don’t already have.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to our willingness to put ourselves at risk, to leave the past in the past and boldly step forward to create a future that honors who we are and the dreams that inspire us.