Let’s face it. When the buzz of the new year is in the air, more than a few of us are guilty of ambitiously making resolutions that we’ll forget by the second week of January. If you want to break the pattern, and actually keep your resolutions, check out these tips to get you started.

1. Identify a realistic goal
Take some time to consider your strengths and weaknesses over the past year, assess what areas you’re lacking in and decide what you’d like to improve. Then, you can focus on forming a resolution you feel confident about meeting and maintaining. There’s no harm in seeking out goals that are ambitious, but make sure they’re also realistic.

2. Create a timeline you can stick to
By the time February rolls around, 80% of those who set New Year’s resolutions have either forgotten or given up on them entirely, according to the U.S. News and World Report. Rather than let this discourage you, try and use it as motivation to build your timeline and set a firm deadline for meeting your goal. If you can be as committed to your timeline as you are intentional about keeping it, you could be within the 20% who are still on track with their resolutions when the initial excitement of the new year starts to fade.

3. Get a game plan
Gathering a game plan to reach your resolution goes hand in hand with the timeline and deadline you’ve created for yourself. Developing a specific plan of attack and setting personal checkpoints can help keep your priorities active and in focus. It can also give you a sense of accomplishment once you begin to meet certain checkpoints that you’ve set.

4. Write it down
When you go grocery shopping, making a list helps you decide what you need, but it also can give you more motivation to actually go out and get those things. In the same way, putting your New Year’s resolutions on paper makes them a reality, and less likely to be abandoned. A visual also helps you create your timeline and forces you to strategize and brainstorm how you’ll put your plan into motion. Plus, research by Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at Dominican University in California, shows that simply writing your goals down makes you 42% more likely to reach them, so why not?

5. Share your resolutions
Talking about your resolutions forces you to embrace your goal and also adds a layer of social accountability. Reporting your goals to friends, colleagues and those within your network might add the positive pressure you need to maintain what you’ve made public. If you’re talking about what you want to accomplish with peers, you’re that much more likely to actually follow through.

6. Reward yourself
An important part of maintaining your goals is giving yourself credit when you reach checkpoints— even if that just means celebrating your place among the 20% who haven’t dropped their resolutions by February. Reward yourself for the recruitment efforts you put forth, regardless of their return. And remember to be patient and stay committed to your resolutions, even if you have to adjust your timeline or game plan to stay on track. New Year’s resolutions are all about improvement, so be generous with yourself and reward not only your results, but also your continued commitment to the goals you’ve set.