Dean Dwyer has some advice and guidance on making changes for yourself in the 
New Year. He isn’t a fan of resolutions, saying that they are too often focused on a goal rather than the behaviors that you plan on engaging in. What you have control over is how you act, so naturally the changes that you make will need to be focused on how you behave. This makes them both more practical and more likely to continue.
In fact, he spends a great deal of time now thinking about behaviors. He evaluates his behaviors rationally to see what is serving him and what’s not. He had previously been very hard on himself, but now he just tries to evaluate a behavior to see whether it helps him. He is finding this a great deal more useful and makes him feel much better about both his goals and himself.