The problem is getting stuck in a rut. We know the rut, we understand it, yet we cannot move ourselves out of it too easily.

So when the old year ends and a new one begins, most often while away from the very things that are keeping us in the rut, we believe we can do it differently this time. We vow things will change, and we will get the outcomes we are after. But changing is more easily said than done. Shifts are not easy, as we tend to like travelling on well-trod roads. We are drawn to familiar scenery, even when it bores us or makes us depressed.

The other thing about changing habits is that we might start off well, with every intention of continuing on a particular path, but the constancy of maintaining the resolution works against us. Our resolve begins to crumble. There will be a point not too far into the implementation of the resolution that we wonder what the hell we are doing trying to do things differently in the first place? Giving up is a good option at that stage. With little invested aside from making grand statements on New Year’s Eve that could well be attributed to too much bubbly, it’s easy to back away and say we didn’t really mean it.

But we do. And therein lies the second problem. Resolutions are often about change – radical change. Some of these are grand designs indeed. If you’re planning to build a house, why not make it a mansion? I’m sure Michelangelo never thought up a small idea in his life. Or perhaps he did, and it was those around him who saw his potential and urged him on. True, most people are not Michelangelo. Even if we are, we don’t tend to think it about ourselves. And so we too, need mentors and coaches. Or loved ones who give us nurture and support if we are going to succeed in making grand visions a reality.

New Year’s resolutions are often about results, and results can’t be actualised without work. Work that is determined and relentless has the biggest chance of succeeding, of getting us to the point we were aiming at.

Which brings us to the third problem. Hard work is sometimes no guarantee of success. We can sometimes bust a gut (and many of us have), and be no better off at the end of it. So just as we are trying to put in place new work habits, new priorities, our inner-censor is whispering in the backs of our minds, ‘It won’t work. You will fail. This will be hard.’

My advice? For whatever it’s worth (since I don’t often take it myself): put in the hard work, be consistent, be relentless, dependable. Meet deadlines and goals, even if it hurts. OK, you may not get what you first wanted, but you will have created something else. That something else may have value, or it might be a feeble light that will shine the way down a path you hadn’t visited nor previously considered. You never know where these obscure roads, these random finds will take you, or who you will meet when wandering, sometimes lost, down their winding tracks.

Go on, do it! I’ll see you down there sometime.