Why Most New Year's Resolutions Fail

f you're one of the many people skeptically writing up your New Year's resolutions for 2015, this post is for you. Sure, you may have had resolutions before, maybe for more years then you can count, but they never seem to stick. What gives? Why haven't you succeeded in fulfilling your goals?

You can and you will succeed if you understand why most resolutions fail. Aside from setting realistic goals, here are the top reasons you may be coming up short when it comes to achieving success:

Your Resolution is Not Specific Enough: This is a big one. Whether you're creating wedding day goals or everyday ones, you MUST be specific. It isn't good enough to say, "I want to lose weight." How much do you want to weigh? How are you going to do it? Who's going to help you or where will your weight loss program take place? It's okay if your resolution is more than one sentence long, in fact, it's better. The more details you incorporate, the more likely you are to succeed, because you're backing it up with a plan.

Your Resolution is Not Measurable: Sometimes we like to include feel good resolutions like, "I want to be a better person" or "I want to be a confident bride." Unless you can define what either of those mean and figure out a way to measure it, you're setting yourself up for failure. That's not to say you shouldn't aim for these things, you may just have to tweak it. If being confident means standing up for your wedding hopes and dreams, you can make it measurable by rephrasing it as, "I will be able to express my wedding day vision whenever challenged to change my decisions." While you can make this statement more specific, it's now measurable in that you can tally up the times you are able to confidently express yourself.

Your Resolution is Not Time Bound: Open-ended resolutions are about as successful as no resolutions at all. You can't hold yourself accountable for your actions if you don't have a time-frame. This is critical. Having a date to complete your resolution by creates a sense of urgency to get it done. If there's no deadline, you'll find plenty of excuses for not getting it done. Be your own boss and give yourself a project due date. It's the only way to have a successful goal.