According to Scientific American, 40% of people set New Year’s resolutions each year. However, as many as 88% among that number do not keep their resolutions for more than two weeks.

As a matter of fact, Quitter’s Day is the second Friday of January, coined by fitness app Strava after noting that statistics show that is when many who made New Year’s resolutions lose motivation and give up.

This year the second Friday is coming up quick — it’s January 9, the day this editorial is seeing print.

To stick to New Year’s resolutions, make them specific, small, and realistic, focus on why they matter, track progress, find support, and plan for slip-ups by forgiving yourself and restarting, turning new habits into automatic actions through consistency over time. It’s about progress, not perfection, using a gradual, positive approach rather than overwhelming changes.

It is recommended to be specific and realistic in resolutions — “getting fit” is too broad and long-reaching a goal. However, “reduce snacking” or “walk for 15 minutes three times per week,” are both easier to keep, and are small steps that can help reach a later bigger goal. It should be noted that a lot of advice regarding keeping resolutions boils down to different ways of saying basically this — small, realistic goals with a practical plan to achieve them can eventually lead to accomplishing larger goals.

At the ribbon cutting for the composting Smart Bins (see story on page 1), Newtown First Selectman Bruce Walczak noted that small steps like installing the Smart Bins, which allow residents to easily drop off organic waste like food scraps, can eventually add up to the achievement of large goals like addressing the state’s waste crisis.

Personal resolutions should be looked at in that way — how can you take continuous small steps, without backtracking, so that if you stick with it, they will eventually lead to achieving the larger goals you really want to accomplish.

Staying motivated can be tough, and keeping the resolutions small helps, but it also helps to define your own motivation for when the going gets tough. If it’s losing weight, then motivations are improving health and staying healthy. Keeping that in mind can help.

Writing down the small goals and motivations can help keep things clear in your mind and help you remember them, and tracking progress can help create dopamine hits as goals are achieved that can lead to larger steps and greater goals and motivations.

Creating a routine around the changes is important — something that you do reflexively every day or a few times a week is harder to abandon than something you do occasionally. Incorporating the behavior into every day life makes the behavior automatic.

Gaining support from friends and family and rewarding small wins can also help keep motivation. Meanwhile, avoid punishing yourself or getting too down on yourself for lapses. Tomorrow is always a new day and another fresh start, and we all fail from time to time. The key is to not let it defeat you.