You will fail at your New Year’s resolution— but you don’t have to.

Ah, 2016. Good riddance!

Before you get into too many glasses of champagne tonight or watching a giant light-up ball drop on TV, it’s a good time to ask yourself: what do I want to change in the coming year?

Personally, I believe change comes from individuals. And if we can change ourselves, we can change our lives and the lives of the people around us.

But New Year’s resolutions are notorious for failing at change. 80% of Americans who attempt them each year fail (yikes!). So why even bother forming them, many say?

Ferris agrees — yikes! 80%! That’s far too many people failing at their resolutions.

A big reason that people fail is because they don’t consider the details. We all say things like “I’m going to lose weight!” or “I’m going to quick smoking” or “I’m going to eat healthier.”

That’s great. I applaud these goals whole heartedly — but that’s just it. They are goals, not actionable habits.

The trick with New Year’s resolutions is to set them up in the right way. How are you going to lose weight? How are you going to quick smoking? How are you going to eat healthier?

At MOTI, we pull a lot from BJ Fogg’s research at the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab to understand how our brains form repetitive behaviors. His main behavioral model can be summed up by the equation B=MAT.

You want to be above that action line!

This year, focus on the A’s and B’s when setting resolutions. If you’d like to lose weight, first define the specific behavior. Are you going to work out? Or, are you going to reduce calorie intake? Or, perhaps you’d like to get good sleep since that will increase your willpower throughout the day. There are many behaviors that can be used to achieve this goal.

Let’s take working out. This still isn’t actionable enough yet. What type of working out? Will you be doing yoga or pushups at home, or going to the gym? If going to the gym, which machines will you do? How long will you go on the treadmill? This might feel laborious, but define the behavior as specifically as possible.

These corgis have defined their habit to be small, distinct, and actionable. Good job, corgis!

Then, consider your ability to do this behavior. If you’re going to the gym — do you have access to the gym, do you have gym clothes, do you have a gym membership? If there are too many hurdles, you might get stuck just in the preparation phase.

Remember: cut everything down to the bare minimum. This lowers your action line to something that is easier to do, making it more likely for you to complete the behavior.

For example, with going to the gym, the behavior you want to form isn’t necessarily using the treadmill. The first habit to form is just getting off the couch and out the door — don’t even think about the exercises yet! Once there, don’t jump straight 30 minutes on the treadmill. Start with 5 minutes — as silly as it may sound. You can keep going after 5 minutes, but acknowledge that you just did something great for yourself.

Remember: lower your action line.

Now let’s talk about breaking habits. This is an entirely different beast, but I’d say at least a third of resolutions are about quitting something bad that we keep doing.

The trick to breaking a bad habit is about understanding the triggers/cues and rewards associated with this routine.

Many of you might be familiar with Charle’s Duhigg’s Habit Loop or Nir Eyal’s Hooked model:

Charles Duhigg’s Habit Loop

Nir Eyal’s Hooked model.

Nobody can break a habit cold-turkey — these loops are already mapped in our brains. Instead, keep the triggers and rewards, but replace the routine.

First, identify your triggers: is it when you’re stressed? When you’re nervous? When you are around a certain person or walk by a certain place?

These will be the same triggers for the new habit.

Then, understand the rewards associated with the bad habit. Is it a sense of calm? A physical feeling? Social acceptance? The new habit should have the same rewards as the bad one.

Ahhhh, the calming effect of tea. (Or perhaps the energizing effect of coffee!)

For example, a friend of mine quit smoking because she replaced the rewards of taking a break from work and the calming effects of inhaling the smoke with making a cup of tea and inhaling the steam.

All in all, there are three things to remember this resolution seasons:

1. Define goals into specific, repetitive behaviors.

2. Lower your action line by making the ability to do this behavior as easy as possible.

3. Build up the habit over time after starting small.

4. If breaking a habit, replace it with a new one that has the same triggers and rewards.

Good luck and Happy New Year!