Top 10 Strategies for Making Your New Year’s Resolution Stick

2013 is on the horizon, and most of us are scrambling to make up a few New Year's resolutions that, frankly, we'll probably forget about in February. Here's how to create a resolution that actually sticks so you can better yourself this year.

10. Focus on One Resolution

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One of the first mistakes people make is planning too many resolutions. The fewer things your brain has to deal with, the better, and you'll be able to focus all your motivation on one resolution, increasing the chances you'll succeed. Need ideas? Check out our top 10 easy-to-keep resolutions, or go for one of the five most popular resolutions and follow our guide to ensuring its success.

9. Get Someone to Hold You Accountable

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Having an "accountability buddy" is an old, yet tried-and-true tip for sticking to your resolutions. Tell your goals to a few close family and friends who will be honest with you and keep you on the right track. Heck, if you're having trouble thinking of a good resolution, those buddies can actually help you pick one, too (since they know you best, faults and all). Don't go too overboard, though. Remember, sometimes sharing with too many people can hinder your accomplishments. Photo by Lululemon Athletica.

8. Set Ultra-Specific Goals

New Year's resolutions are often big and general, making them hard to attain. The more specific you can be, the easier it will be to reach that goal. "Lose weight" or "get in shape" is a bad resolution; "Lose 15 pounds by March" is a good one. Setting multiple specific goals throughout the year is good, too. That way, you always have something attainable to focus on that doesn't seem far off. Photo by Rob Ellis.

7. Piggyback Your Resolution with Existing Habits

If your resolution involves building small habits—like, say, flossing every day or taking daily vitamins—you can "piggyback" these habits with other, already-established ones. Stick your dental floss in your shower and floss during your shower, or put your vitamin jar inside your kitchen cupboard so you always remember to take them when you eat breakfast. The easier you can form the habit, the more likely it is to stick.

6. Give Yourself a Trial Run

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Not every resolution is perfect out of the gate, so don't hold yourself to a poorly-formed goal if it just won't work. Give yourself a 30-day trial run to work out the kinks, where you can let yourself stumble a bit and tweak your goals to something better suited for success. Keep in mind that not all habits are formed in 21 days, as conventional wisdom says, so even after the trial run, give yourself time to sink into the habit before you start admitting defeat. Photo by John Kwan(Shutterstock).

5. Trick Your Mind

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Resolutions are hard to keep without a sense of accomplishment. Having specific, gradual goals can help, but another trick is to play some mind games with yourself. The placebo effect can be pretty useful in keeping you motivated, even if you know you're using it on yourself. Focus on anything that makes you feel like you're succeeding. If you're trying to lose weight, eating from smaller plates will make you "feel" fuller, even if you're eating the same amount of food, for example. Do whatever you need to do to trick your mind and you'll be well on your way to success. Photo by mattza.

4. Visualize the End Result

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As writer Rod Ebrahimi says, "focus on the carrot, not the stick". If you're having trouble staying motivated, focus on what you'll get from your end goal—whether that's feeling better at a lower weight, being able to impress your friends with your new guitar skills, or just being able to breathe now that you've quit smoking. Staying positive seems like common sense, but it can be hard when you're in the middle of a big plateau. Photo by Davidd.

3. Closely Measure Your Progress

If you've created specific goals, then getting positive reinforcement should be easy. Every time your each one of those goals—even if it's just a daily goal—mark it off on a checklist or calendar. You can even go a step further and use Seinfeld's "Don't Break the Chain" method of goal-setting, which is great for daily goals like "write every day" or "exercise 5 times a week." For other resolutions, try out one of our five favorite goal-tracking services to measure your progress.

2. Remind Yourself of Your Goals Every Day

If you're having trouble keeping your goals at the forefront of your mind, you can use one of any number of tricks to constantly remind yourself (besides tracking your progress). Set an alarm on your phone with a message of why you're doing this, record yourself on a webcam every day, or use dry erase markers to write your goals on your bathroom mirror.

1. Start Right Now

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Why wait until New Year's Day? Whether you're reading this at the end of December or in the middle of July, start right now—even with small changes to prepare you for the big push—and you'll be one step closer to achieving your goals. There's no reason your goals need to start on January 1st, so call up those accountability buddies, jot down your milestones, and get started with that resolution right now.

Send Large Files through Emails from Desktop, Web or Mobile

When it comes to sending some files or other electronic stuffs, our first priority remains as the email. Although there are other options to send a file like uploading onto some cloud server and sending the downloading link to the other recipient but this can be bit complex for some simple user who don’t know much of this stuff apart from email.

So whether it is some video clip or some large file, which you need to send to someone we have faced problems while using the email for this purpose. All the email services that are available today are free and none of them provide the capability of sending a large sized file. Say for instance, Yahoo mail that has the limit of 25 MB can’t be used for sending a file more than this.

For all those who wish to use the email as the media to send large files, should try this free web service called DigitalPigeon. It is an online free email sending service that can be used to send large files in MBs or GBs to another recipient who need not be a DigitalPigeon user (something that I liked the most).

You just need to create an account on DigitalPigeon, login and enter the recipient’s email address. After this you can now attach the file, which will be stored on their fast servers powered by Amazon. You can also see the preview of the email before sending it so that you can know how it will look at the other end. When you click Send button, an email will be sent to the user with the download link from where the files can be downloaded.

The service also lets you know when the other person has seen the files and when not. Moreover the service is also available for mobile phones as a mobile app. This will allow the users to be mobile and yet use this service. You can also download the desktop app on your computer, so that you don’t need to visit this again and again.

There are some limitations to this service too. Free users can only send files upto 500 MB in size and that too at the max 4 times in a month. Files also expire after 7 days of time. So if you are a business user who need to use this service without any restrictions, then you can go ahead and buy the paid plans.

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