The beginning of a new year is a natural time for reflection. It's very easy to project our own fears, regrets, and desires against the blank silver screen of the new year. We use the end of the year to leave behind the things that hold us back, and take bold steps to improve ourselves as we welcome in the new year. Taken together, this desire for change has led to the tradition of making new year's Resolutions.

It works like this: I look in the mirror on December 31st, and I decide that I need to drop a few pounds and become physically fit. When the ball drops at midnight, I declare that I will lose weight in the new year. It's a sincere declaration – my mind spins with possibilities, with images of morning runs and steamed chicken and beverages that look like they were skimmed from the surface of a pond, all to the joyful sounds of Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger." When I my head hits the pillow, my resolve is like reinforced concrete, and as I drift off to sleep, I can actually feel my body transform into a Spartan Warrior. My resolve is so strong that I imagine sinews where before there was only many years of accumulated Doritos and Tater Tots.

The next morning, I awaken to discover that the much-anticipated sinews are nowhere to be found, and that in order to transcend my current limitations and become a modern-day Leonidas, I will have to get out of bed and exercise until I am tired. Well, I think, I am already tired, so I am ahead of the game. Tomorrow, when I have recovered from my New Year's revelries, I will attack this goal with fiendish intensity.

The next day, with fiendish intensity, I order a new workout video and a stair-climber. However, since I ordered them both online, I will have to wait at least a week before I embark on my new fitness journey. With iron will, I resolve to spend the next week working on a diet plan. By the time the UPS man arrives bearing instruments of personal change, I will be fully prepared to transform myself into a chiseled figure of manly strength, fueling myself with only the cleanest and most natural foods. I eagerly await the coming of my fitness future.

A month later, munching on a nice, delicious handful of Doritos, I admire the stair-climber's amazing abilities as a handy place to hang up clothes, while the exercise videos sit unopened on a shelf next to the television, forgotten.

What happened?

According to studies, more than 80 percent of New Year's Resolutions fail. Behavioral health experts cite a number of reasons, but most agree that the crux of the problem is that Resolutions tend to focus on an external goal – losing weight, getting a new job, or ending some bad habit- without addressing the reasons that made the resolution necessary in the first place.

Rather than suffer the cycle of anticipation and disappointment that often accompanies a New Year's Resolution, it might be better to re-think how we approach self-improvement. There's an 11-billion-dollar industry devoted to helping people improve themselves, and from this very large well I have drawn a couple of ideas that might serve as a starting point for anyone looking for a more effective path to self-improvement.

Stephen Guise, the author of Mini Habits, struggled with weight loss and physical fitness for years. In 2012, he hit upon an idea that changed his life. Instead of resolving to accomplish a large, complicated, lofty, goal, he resolved to do a simple, easily-accomplished goal every day. He called them "mini-habits," and the idea led to several books, a website, and level of fitness he had never been able to attain before. The idea behind mini-habits is to make a small, easily accomplished goal, such as doing a single push-up, reading one page from a book, or writing a single sentence. The idea is one is more likely to do a small, easily accomplished task than a large imposing one. What Guise found was that he would often do more than the minimum, and that, over time, these tasks ended up forming into good habits that improved his life.

Another idea comes from Marla Tabaka writing for INC. magazine. She writes about replacing resolutions with a "word of the year," and using that word as a way to focus your energy on a specific area that you would like to improve. Choosing a word of the year allows a person to focus on an area of improvement without imposing the kind of pass or fail mentality that comes with a resolution.

If New Year's Resolutions work for you, then pat yourself on the back and keep on keepin' on. But if you are in the vast majority for whom New Year's Resolutions have the binding power of wet Charmin, there's still hope. Change up your approach, and you might find that self-improvement actually is within your grasp.