The statistics that 98% of all New Years Resolutions fail is nothing new or startling. I am sure we all know people, who have resolved after a heavy Christmas to do one of three things, give up smoking, give up alcohol and lose weight. How many people do you know that have undertaken these resolutions but by Easter they were back to their old ways. Well, if you are a believer of the statistics, 98% of them have failed by Easter, leaving just 2% continuing to succeed.

Which side of the fence do you sit on? The side of success or failure!

There are many reasons why people fail to succeed. In reality there are thirteen core reasons why people do not have the resolution to achieve success when it comes to their New Years resolutions. In the 1930's Napoleon Hill wrote a book called Think and Grow Rich, which focused on teaching the principles of success in business and making an obscene amount of money.

The interesting aspect of this book is that the principles or 13 secrets he teaches for being financially successful are the same ones that you must know to be successful in giving up smoking, alcohol or losing weight.

The four core principles we will focus on from Napoleon Hill's playbook of success are -

1. Desire

2. Faith

3. Autosuggestion

4. Persistence

Without these four core principles it will be virtually impossible to achieve success.

The first principle of Desire is really easy to understand. For you to lose your weight, you must have that over whelming Desire to lose weight, THAT BURNING PASSION OF DESIRE. In reality when most people make a New Years resolution they certainly have the DESIRE to want to complete their resolution, but after a number of months that DESIRE can wane.

Faith is the second important principle of Napoleon Hill's book Think and Grow Rich. To be successful at achieving your New Years resolution, you must have an unresolved faith that you will achieve your objective. For example if you want to lose 20 kilograms, you must in your mind, see that you are that weight. You must have an unmoveable faith that you will meet that weight objective. You must believe you are that weight.

The power of Autosuggestion is one that psychologist to this day; still do not have a total grasp on. Napoleon Hill defines autosuggestion as programming your mind to totally believe that you will achieve your objective. Programming you mind involves you knowing that you will succeed. Autosuggestion allows you to visualize your success, so each day you need to see in your mind, you not smoking, you at the weight you want to be or you not drinking. If your mind does not believe you are going to achieve success then how do you ever expect to achieve it.

In his book Think and Grow Rich, he provides a number of activities to help you in visualizing that success. The activities he requires you to do must be completed on a daily basis or you will never overcome the power of the negative mind.

The last principle we will focus on is Persistence. If you do not obsessively commit to your New Years resolution then of course you will fail. You must be obsessively persistent in achieving your New Years resolution, you must think about it and act on it every single day or you will never succeed. Once again Napoleon Hill in his book has practical exercises for you to do each day to help you maintain your persistence but ultimately it is up to you.

The bottom line is this, you will only achieve your New Years resolution when you truly commit to changing your life. There are in fact 13 principles you must follow to make this change but to get started you must master the four core principles of -

1. Desire

2. Faith

3. Autosuggestion

4. Persistence