Most of us have felt that spark to want to dramatically change our lives, often at the start of a new year. We make the list of everything we plan to do, watch the YouTube videos and read the books. We may even actually take the initiative to start some of the habits we wanted to commit to, but eventually the spark fizzles out and we realize that nothing has actually stuck. In fact, making New Year’s resolutions and abandoning them a few weeks into the year is so common it has become a cliché.

Avoiding this pitfall  begins with the actual goals that we create. Often, when we get the inspiration to change, we are inspired to transform our entire lives, and in turn we create an abundance of goals to implement in every area of our lives. But when we instead start with smaller goals that are baby steps to the larger things we want to achieve, it is much more likely that we complete them. Completing these baby steps gives our brain the dopamine it needs to want to keep following through with our plans, allowing us to keep building on the goals that will eventually bring us to the larger end point we had in mind originally.

Changing your life also requires discipline, and having a strong understanding of how to become disciplined is integral to becoming who we want to be. Essentially, discipline is the idea of doing things anyways. It is doing it when you are tired. It is doing it when you are unmotivated. It is doing it when you don’t want to. This requires the understanding of completing tasks for their long-term benefits towards your goals, and not necessarily complying with the instant gratification that comes with giving into your immediate desires.

Change also requires compassion and forgiveness towards yourself. As humans, we are obviously going to slip up from time to time. Letting this ruin our progress or set us back, though, is demotivating and hard to come back from. Instead, you should recognize the mistake you made and reflect on ways to avoid making the same mistake in the future, and just move on. Dwelling on the workouts you skipped or homework assignments you missed will likely lead to a spiral of feeling bad about yourself and feeling more inclined to simply quit rather than to keep going. Change that stems from contempt is bound to eventually fall apart. When our goals come from self-respect instead of self-hatred, it is much easier to move on from the hiccups and want to keep going.

Change and habits that will stick in our lives come from hundreds of small decisions we make every single day. Focusing on making the right choices in these small moments and taking the baby steps towards our goals is more likely to lead to actual progress than making huge promises to ourselves that we are likely to give up on within a few weeks.

So the next time you get that random feeling at 3 a.m. to change your entire life, or if you have made New Year’s resolutions for 2026, make sure it’s out of a true desire to be better for yourself. And while it is easy to make a list of all the goals you want to accomplish, just take it a step further and break them down into smaller, everyday tasks that you are more likely to complete.