It’s the beginning of the year and the excitement of Christmas is a distant memory. Everyone is attempting to survive on cubes of cheese and dust shakes – why? Because of resolutions.

Here are some reasons why those well intentioned goals are so hard to keep:

1. You don’t care about them

With everyone making a change in the New Year, you thought you’d join in, giving up some arbitrary thing that you really quite like, for no good reason. Without motivation, what chance do you have of not wolfing down those BBQ ribs at the first chance you get?

2. You aren’t being true to yourself

The best resolutions are the ones that are personal to you. If you desperately want to buy a house in London this year, then it makes sense to save a certain amount each month. Your motivation is imagining yourself Netflix and chilling in your new home.

3. They are too vague

The clock strikes 12 on New Year’s Eve and panic takes over, with a glass of wine in one hand and a mince pie in the other, you vow to cut sugar out of your diet for good; flinging down the mince pie in disgust.

But have you thought about what types of sugar you will cut out? What will you replace your sugary snacks with?

4. They are unrealistic

Trying to change your style, body shape and career all at once will leave you overwhelmed. Break big goals down into small achievable steps.

5. You’re setting them as punishment, not as growth

It’s never too late to set a growth goal, try “Eat five delicious vegetables a day so I can live my fabulous life longer” rather than “cut out carbohydrates because I look like a beached whale.”