If you want to quit a bad habit, start by identifying its 3 main parts: the cue, the routine, and the reward. After you check the cue and your routine that follows it, you can swap the routine with something good (or less bad) to do.

While you're trying to follow your resolution, there will be inevitable obstacles and slip-ups that will discourage you. Do not punish yourself, just stop your inner critic from whispering negative things in your mind and carry on with your good work.

Betting money or taking a financial pledge can help you motivate yourself on days you feel you cannot commit to your new routine.

There will be people that may discourage you, try to make you a slacker again, or just thrust their negativity and inner jealousy on your positive goal-setting, trying to sabotage it.

Online support groups and forums can help you find a person or a group of people with the same goal, who can foster a sense of community and help you stay on course.

A group supporting you with your goals can be an effective technique for motivation. It is a form of public commitment and peer pressure to keep you from postponing or giving up upon your goals.

The W.O.O.P. Technique can work to make you focus on what is to be done:

Chances are you won't just wake up one day and suddenly change your life. To go where you want to go, you have to chart out a plan.

Set slightly bendable and flexible plans so that you can meet them on a daily basis.

In case you miss your resolution, don't lose hope and start afresh. Keep moving in a positive direction, even with setbacks.

When you try to push yourself in the right direction by trying to build a good habit, there are forces inside you that will resist and have to be fought.