January 1 has come and gone, which leads us to ask: How are those New Year’s resolutions coming?

If you have yet to visit your new gym or are white-knuckling it through your-no-more-sugar-forever vow, you have plenty of company. Something like 88 percent of resolutions made by Americans fail, according to one estimate.

And the problem isn’t your lack of willpower, your inability to set and accomplish long-range goals or the idea that you are too stuck in your ways.

It’s in the nature of resolutions themselves. Experts in the burgeoning science of habit change say “lose weight,” “manage stress better,” “do better at work” and other popular resolutions are too lofty or vague. Or, they involve tasks people won’t stick with because they are too difficult or because they leave you feeling deprived.

That doesn’t mean you can’t improve your life. You can, experts say, and you don’t need a special date like January 1 or furious amounts of motivation and effort. You just need to figure out healthy new routines you can easily and happily incorporate into your daily life.

Compiled here are 10 cutting-edge concepts from leading experts in habit change, including Charles Duhigg, the author of the 2011 bestseller “The Power of Habit” and a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter.

“There’s this idea that as we become older, it becomes harder to change,” he says. But research shows any habit can be changed by approaching it methodically, “so you can make it ingrained in your daily life.”

1. Really, it’s all in your head

A little understanding of the science can go a long way toward getting you started.

In the late 1800s, psychologist William James theorized that we are essentially “bundles of habits.” More than 100 years later, cognitive psychologists, neuroscientists and various experiments with rats and rewards have shown James was onto something.

Habits are routines — like brushing your teeth or driving to work — that we barely think about because they reside in the part of the brain that automates regular behaviors to free up the prefrontal cortex for higher-level, decision-making tasks.

2. Make changes you want

Don’t make changes you feel like you “should” do.

“Behaviors that feel like ‘shoulds’ rarely become habits,” says Stanford consulting professor B.J. Fogg, whose research focuses on how to use technology to make behavioral changes.

And, yes, people often find they do like doing things that are good for them, but it’s important to experiment to figure those out, Fogg says. “That’s one of the things that I think surprises people but is important. They have to find behaviors that they want to do.”

3. Identify triggers

To replace a habit with a healthy one, you first need to dissect the “neurological loop” that lies at the core of each habit, Duhigg says.

When Duhigg began researching his book, he identified the loop that prompted him to visit the company cafeteria every day between 3 and 4 o’clock to buy a chocolate chip cookie. He repeatedly vowed to end the habit, but once that time of day hit, he always ended up in the cafeteria.

As MIT researchers told Duhigg, the loop consists of a cue, routine and reward. By noting the onset of his cookie craving and emotional state, then experimenting with alternate routines — walking outside — Duhigg realized he didn’t buy a cookie because he was hungry or hankering for sugar. He just wanted a break from work.

4. Create new rewards

So, he planned out a new routine and devised a new reward. He set an alarm for 3:30 p.m. so he’d get up from his desk and find a work friend to chat with. He replaced the cookie habit with something else pleasurable — socializing. After six months, the new habit became automatic enough that he didn’t have to think about doing it and he didn’t miss the afternoon cookie.

5. Make small changes

When Fogg, also director of Stanford University’s Persuasive Tech Lab, wanted to add something new to his fitness regimen, he told himself to do two push-ups throughout the day after going to the bathroom.

Fogg expected himself to do only two. But if he felt energized to do more — and he would usually do five to 12 — he would count any above two as “extra credit.” Over the course of a day, he would get in 40 to 70 push-ups.

Fogg’s push-up regimen illustrates his “Tiny Habits” method of behavior change. “One way to change behavior is to make small changes and to feel successful for accomplishing those,” he says.

6. Don’t take on too much

As the Tiny Habits method suggests, Fogg says people don’t need to radically transform their lives to achieve results.

“Small changes can have a big impact when done right,” he says.

While people often like to set a goal to aim for, the focus shouldn’t be on the goal but on making the many behavior changes around achieving it, he says. And, people shouldn’t try to tackle all those changes at once.

To lose 30 pounds, for example, “there are about 50 new skills you have to learn,” he says. They can range from learning how to dine out with dietary restrictions to building time in to exercise five days a week.

He recommends starting with three specific and manageable changes you’ll want to do every day for the rest of your life and then refining those habits or adding new ones the next week and the next.

“It’s something very easy to repeat and to make a habit,” he says.

7. Forget 21 days (or 28)

Conventional wisdom holds that if you repeat a habit every day for three weeks, it will stick. Not so, says Christine Carter, sociologist and happiness expert at UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and author of the new book “The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work.”

There is no hard and fast rule, but generally, easy habits can take a few days to adopt, while some research suggests others can take more than two months.

8. Don’t go it alone

Duhigg’s book shows how people sharing their recovery success stories in Alcoholics Anonymous inspires others in recovery to believe they, too, can change while Carter says family and friends can serve as your “external willpower” when dedication to a new habit falters.

“Most of us care what other people think of us and when we make our intentions public in some way — even if our public is just an inner circle of close friends — our intentions have more power,” Carter says.

9. Celebrate successes

Carter says she’s a big fan of giving herself a “Yeah, me!” mental pat on the back whenever she makes even a small accomplishment, such as setting out her exercise clothes next to her bed at night.

Those tiny celebrations trigger small hits of dopamine, the neurotransmitter associated with the brain’s reward and pleasure center, that tells your brain it’s a habit worth repeating.

10. Shrug off setbacks

Because it’s common to falter when attempting new habits, Carter urges people to forgive themselves and learn from their lapses: Maybe it shows that the new routine needs tweaking or the change is too much too soon.

“Instead of seeing a relapse as an indication that you aren’t good enough to establish a habit, see it as a clue that will help you better create a good habit that will stick with you for the rest of your life,” she says.