Everybody knows that New Year’s resolutions are tough. While some people seem to have it easier than others, everyone has their own struggles with their resolutions. Here are some reasons you might be failing at your resolutions – and ways you can solve those problems.

You Don’t Really Care Too Much About Your Resolutions

One of the biggest reasons someone is likely to fail their resolution is because their heart simply isn’t in it. Whether your resolution was based off a passing interest or you’ve been goaded into picking up a resolution with your coworkers, it’s going to be that more difficult if you just don’t really care.

Of course, you care at least a little about your resolutions. If you’re having trouble finding the motivation to tackle your goals, think hard about how the resolutions appeal to you. Why do you want to take on this goal, and how would you benefit if you succeed? Write your reasons down if need be, and when you find yourself losing focus, bring yourself back to what made you passionate about the resolutions in the first place.

You’re Making Your Goals Too Difficult

On the other hand, you could just be a little too excited to see some results. This can lead to some unexpectedly disappointing results. You can have all the motivation in the world to tackle your resolution, but you’re not going to get very far by setting your sights way too high.

If you were too optimistic in setting your goals, don’t be afraid to bring them down a notch. A person who wants to run a marathon doesn’t start off by running long miles on the first day. Unless you’re training for a specific event in the future, there’s little harm in slowing your goals down. It’s also important to note that overextending yourself could lead to injury, delaying your goal much more than if you’d just paced yourself better to begin with.

You’re Not Quantifying Your Goals

Here’s a question for you. How do you know when you’ve completed your resolution? If you can’t answer that question, you need to get more specific about your goals. Resolutions that don’t have measurable or quantifiable endpoints are going to be difficult to achieve, as you won’t even know when you’ve hit your goal!

Thankfully, it shouldn’t be too difficult to quantify your resolution. If you want to lose weight, set a specific weight and the date you’d like to achieve that weight by. If you want to be a better runner, set a time or distance and start working your way up to it. With that goal post in mind, you’ll be better able to gauge your progress on a week-to-week, or even day-by-day, basis.

Spending a little time working on your resolution can pay off big time, but there’s still a chance you could fail. That’s okay! Use your failures as opportunities to learn from, and then try again. Whether or not you meet your goals, you’ll at least be trying, which is more than you can say for many other resolution holders.

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