Psychologists offer their best tips for staying on track in 2018, from taking on your challenge in the morning to cutting yourself some slack

Making a New Year resolution …

• Don’t think of it as a New Year resolution, says Charles Duhigg, the author of The Power of Habit – think of it as a new year plan. “Much more important than setting a far off goal, like running a marathon, is to set an immediate plan that you can start right away.” Start with baby steps – running half a mile every Monday morning, for example – and you can work upwards.

• Whether you are making a new habit from scratch or changing an old habit, decide on the cue and the reward. The cue could be a time, a place or a feeling, while the reward must be instantaneous, explains Wendy Wood, provost professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California: “Don’t buy a new pair of shoes at the end of the week – that works for our conscious mind, which is not the neuromechanism behind habits. The reward needs to be immediate, something that makes the behaviour fun.”

• Use implementation intentions to solidify your plan. Chris Armitage, professor of health psychology at the University of Manchester, explains: “This is a technique that is specifically structured to take advantage of the ways in which habits are formed to change behaviour. The structure is ‘if-then’.” Say your resolution is to run half a mile on Monday mornings. Your implementation intention could be: “If it’s Sunday night, then I will set my alarm 30 minutes earlier, so that I have time to run.” Identify the situations related to your cue to find your “ifs” and link them with appropriate responses to make your “thens”. In a recent study by Armitage, 15% of smokers who formed implementations quit, compared with 2% of those who did not.

… and keeping it

• Make it easy. A recent study showed that people who travelled 8km to the gym went once a month, whereas people who travelled 6km went five or more times a month. “That 2km makes the difference between having a good exercise habit and not. That is how our habitual mind works – it has to be easy,” says Wood.

• Show self-compassion. Dr Jessamy Hibberd, a clinical psychologist, says “the biggest obstacle to new habits is self-criticism. Study after study shows that self-criticism is correlated with less motivation and worse self-control, in contrast with being kind or supportive to yourself, as you would to a friend – especially when confronted with failure.”

• Do it in the morning. One study found that simple habits form more quickly in the morning than in the evening. Researchers believe this may be to do with levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which tend to be highest when we wake up. The author of the study, Marion Fournier, a lecturer at the Université Nice Sophia Antipolis, explains: “Cortisol elevation changes the mechanisms in our brain – it blocks the prefrontal cortex, meaning behaviour becomes habitual.”

• Keep track. Use apps, a diary or a chart to track your progress. “People who monitor behaviour tend to do a better job, even if they’re not actively trying to change,” says Gretchen Rubin, the author of Better than Before.

• Spot your loopholes. Rubin says it is crucial to avoid listening to the excuses that make our habits falter, such as the false choice loophole: “I can’t go on a run tomorrow because I have to do X.” Recognising them in advance can make them less powerful, she explains: “That’s the thing about loopholes – when you realise you’re doing it, you’re much more likely to resist.”