You may have started out thinking that it’s just a matter of willpower. But willpower simply poops out over time.

Then, you feel guilty and demoralized . . . and beat yourself up.You question whether you really are capable. You may even question your self-concept and identity.

But you don’t give up, so problem-solving comes next. You think that your mistake may have been in not following the right tactic or strategy, like SMART goals, tiny habits, pomodoro technique, time boxing, or getting an accountability partner.

Maybe it was a matter of latching onto the solution and “just” doing it.

But again, if you’re like most people, you still drop out of the game.

The guilt and frustration you initially feel dies down as you rationalize, play down the importance of changing, or use other strategies to avoid the truth of your failure. You may be telling yourself that it wasn’t your fault because of all sorts of external factors or that this wasn’t really the year to make changes.

You’re certain next year will be different.

But will it?

A review of research from top schools, including Harvard and Stanford, and biomedical literature available in the National Institutes of Health database, reveal three core reasons most people fail to keep their New Year’s Resolutions:

1. Our resolutions aren't necessarily connected to important values that give life meaning--values that make us feel engaged, alive, connected to what really counts for us.

2. We focus on goals rather than the outcomes (the result we get when we reach our goals).

3. We don't know how to persist when the going gets rough, and we don’t make contingency plans for when things get off track.

This boils down to three fundamental questions that apply to any and all resolutions:

1. Do I really care?

2. What difference will it make?

3. Will I make it, and how?

Suppose your answers to these three questions were:

“Yes, I care.”

“It will make a positive difference.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to make it.”

Then what?

Harness the Power of a Fresh Start

Katherine Milkman and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School explain why. Their research revealed a psychological phenomenon that occurs at time-based landmarks such as the start of a new week, month, or year; holidays; and birthdays.

Milkman calls it the “fresh start effect.” Under the influence of this effect, people take a mental accounting of the previous time period, relegate past mistakes and flaws to the past, and look with greater optimism toward the future. They are most motivated to pursue behaviors that help them achieve their personal goals.

While you may not have heard of the fresh start effect, everyone is familiar with the idea of turning over a new leaf, getting a running head start, and wiping the slate clean and starting again.

That explains why “new year, new you” is so appealing. But the fresh start effect only gets you going. It doesn’t tell you what you need to do to keep at it.

If you want to know how to make your New Year’s Resolutions stick, listen to experts who study human behavior where outcomes really matter, where it’s a matter of life and death.

Take a look into hospital emergency rooms, the cockpits of spacecraft, and on the field of military battle.

In those settings, the desired outcomes aren't a given, but everyone pursues them with relentless determination.

That relentless determination is evident in former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s assertion: “If you're going through hell, keep going!”

But what enables people to keep going when what they’re going through is hell? What enables people to translate resolve and determination into action?

It’s resilience.

The elements of resilience that help clinicians, astronauts, and warriors succeed are the same as for anyone who wants to make their New Year's resolutions stick.

These include being adaptable, making timely decisions, using multiple approaches, and monitoring and measuring progress.

You may already be doing this.

But resilience isn’t only about taking action.

That’s because action is driven by your mindset, attitude, thoughts, and feelings. How you work with and manage these depends on your psychological flexibility, which is the foundation for resilience.

Psychological flexibility is your ability to take committed action in the service of your freely-chosen values despite troubling or difficult thoughts, feelings, or sensations.

You do what counts no matter what.

The problem is, psychological flexibility and the resilience it fosters don’t come naturally to us.

But it can be developed.

Over the last almost 5 years, we’ve worked with people just like you who are struggling to do better in their lives, but running up against their own internal barriers.

Time and time again, they’re amazed at the power of the approach we use and the strategies we teach. Everything we share with you is based on cutting-edge neuro- and behavioral science, and linguistics as they apply to human performance, professional learning and development, and personal growth and transformation.

Together, we have over 60 years of training and professional experience with learning organizations.

Dr. Deborah Teplow is co-founder of Be Your Own Best Coach and the Institute for Wellness Education, which created the occupational standards for wellness coaching for the US Department of Labor and the curriculum for the DoL’s 2-year Registered Apprenticeship. Previously, Deborah partnered with Indiana University School of Medicine to pioneer interactive case-based continuing medical education for physicians.

As an expert in translating theory into practice, Deborah helps people use evidence-based approaches to create lasting behavior change. Her special focus is on helping professionals and community activists increase their ability to engage and influence others.

Deborah earned her doctorate at Stanford University researching and publishing on the topic of performance and deliberate practice. She has taken advanced training in post-modern behavioral approaches to change including solution-focused brief therapy, and acceptance and commitment therapy. Certifications include Tiny Habits® coaching and several athletic-related certifications.

Glen Lubbert is co-founder of Be Your Own Best Coach and the founder of Stamina Lab, which helps people maximize their potential and live a long healthspan through human performance coaching. Before that, Glen founded an award-winning, multi-million dollar tech incubator in the health and medical industry.

Glen leverages behavior design to help teams and individuals who want to take their professional and personal performance to the next level while improving their sleep, reducing stress, avoiding burnout, having more energy, and dropping into flow.

In addition to helping people level up their performance, Glen has studied nervous system management and mindfulness including with University of Massachusetts’ Medical School professor Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., is certified in Stanford Behavior Design Lab founder Dr. BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits® behavior change methodology, is a certified Thrive Global coach, and is a certified sleep & recovery expert as well as a former Division I athlete.

Imagine a life where hardship, challenges, and disruptions are things you manage with presence, focus, and effective action. Where you become an unstoppable force against any obstacle that comes your way.

Sounds incredible, right?

That's the power of resilience.

It’s also the reason we developed the Resilience, Not Resolutions Bootcamp.

When you join, you’ll be just one step away from turning this imagination into reality.

Expert-Designed: Our program is designed by experienced behavior designers and performance coaches, steeped in the most current validated scientific theories that they’ve turned into practical action to help you boost your resilience.

Personalized Plan: Unlike other resilience-training programs that are prescriptive and dogmatic, Engineer Resilience invites you to be both the scientist and the subject. You test out a wide range of interventions to see how they work to deliver the results you want and how they fit with your own unique needs, interests, preferences, and values.

Comprehensive: Engineer Resilience is not a hodge-podge of tips and techniques. Instead, it addresses all six components of psychological flexibility using a science-based mind-body approach to maximize your resilience and ability to bounce back, with, forward, and outward.

Lifetime Access: Once you sign up for the program, you have lifetime access to all resources, including future updates and additions.

• Live coaching: Live coaching is crucial for building solid skills. It’s why every top performer in the world–no matter what discipline–always has at least one coach. It’s also why we offer live coaching at each step of the way through your journey toward greater resilience.

  • Initial kick-off call to orient you to how the program works and give you a taste of how each day’s simple practice opens the door for transformation

  • Weekly group coaching calls to facilitate your own self-coaching practice tailored to your unique interests, needs, values, and preferences

• Daily mini morning audio that walks you through the mind-body practice for the day

• 28-day personal interactive journaling program that offers a structured curriculum to address each of the six aspects of psychological flexibility and features a comprehensive mind-body approach to greater psychological flexibility and increased resilience

• 4 weekly videos explaining the theory supporting each week's activities with practical tips and suggestions for getting the most out of your 28-day challenge

• Tracking and monitoring tools to help you quickly assess key factors of psychological flexibility

• Bonus materials and action guide

Manage your nervous system in the face of adversity

• Evidence-based practices to work with your nervous system when stress sets off automatic fight-flight-freeze responses

• Techniques to reduce reactivity in emotionally-charged encounters that hijack your thinking brain

• How to choose the right mind-body practices to manage the physiological effects of threat and conflict

• How and when to use specific metaphors to help you stay present and focused when the mind wants to escape

• Strategies to enhance your emotional intelligence, reduce your stress, and make better decisions

• Techniques to reduce reactivity in emotionally-charged encounters

Choose the right approach to optimize psychological flexibility

• Proven techniques to increase your ability to be open, aware, and take effective action regardless of the challenges

• Discover ways to transform adversity into opportunity

• 3 easy linguistic techniques to increase perspective and boost your ability to exercise choice instead of being trapped in automatic behavior patterns of reactivity

• Use metaphors to reduce overwhelm and anxiety

• Use visualization to plan and manage potentially difficult situations while acting in the service of your chosen values

Use body-based approaches when your mind seems stuck in one position

• How to uncover and amplify hidden strengths and skills that can help you take you take charge of your story instead of your story taking charge of you

• 15+ easy mind-body-breath techniques that can be done in less than 3 minutes to regulate energy and attention

• How to use body-based experiments to free your mind when it seems trapped in a never-ending pattern of negativity

Harness the power of connection

• How to combine body-based mindfulness practices with pragmatic goal setting and contingency planning to help people you care about

We are confident that this program will knock your socks off. Based on the experience of people in our previous cohorts, you can expect that after just the first session, you’ll feel lighter, more optimistic and confident, and have a smile on your face.

That’s because we’ve designed it for people who know that even small steps can lead to big rewards. This means you get power-packed content in small, bite-sized pieces within a flexible framework that allows you to tailor what you learn to your unique needs, interests, preferences, and values.

If after the first week, you decide the program didn't deliver on its promise for any reason, email solutions@beyourownbestcoach.com before the second live session to get a full refund

This program is for anyone who’s “been there, done that” with New Year’s resolutions and finally wants to get it right.

You’re ready to work toward things you’ve only dreamed about, and you know you have it in you to make the changes required.

You’re also fed up with failure and discouragement.

This is the year you’re ready for something new, something that works. And you’re willing to stretch.

And who is not a good fit for your course?

But if you’re the kind of person who still thinks that making New Year’s resolutions stick is just a matter of finding the right technique, this may not be the right program for you.

It also isn’t right for anyone who isn’t willing to take a deep dive into their internal world and discover ways to be more open, aware, and capable of taking action even in the face of difficult, painful, or uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, or sensations that hold you back.

Through the consistent and guided daily journaling practices of the Engineer Resilience Challenge, you'll build psychological flexibility and resilience from within. By fostering openness and present-moment awareness, you'll recognize difficult thoughts and emotions as what they are–passing artifacts of your busy mind, not inalienable truth. Instead of being consumed by them and struggling with how to avoid or rid yourself of distressing thoughts, feelings, and sensations, you’ll learn what to do to remain grounded in your authentic self, clear about your values and acting in ways that serve them.

Participating in the Engineer Resilience Challenge will improve your life in three areas:

• Behavior: You'll find yourself engaging in actions that are in line with your values, even in challenging circumstances. You'll take steps towards your goals, make decisions based on what truly matters to you, and demonstrate greater resilience in the face of obstacles.

• Thinking: You'll observe a shift in your thinking patterns. You'll become more adept at reframing negative thoughts, letting go of unhelpful beliefs, and approaching situations with a growth-oriented mindset. You'll notice increased cognitive flexibility and the ability to generate multiple perspectives, enabling you to find creative solutions to problems.

• Feeling: You'll experience a greater sense of emotional balance and well-being. You'll notice improved emotional regulation, feeling more at ease with your emotions.

If you’re looking for a prescription and a bunch of tips for how to build resilience, the Engineer Resilience Challenge may not be for you.

True resilience means that you embrace the chaos of life. It means being anti-fragile. It means growing stronger with randomness, cultivating the ability to bounce with, forward, and outward.

But here’s a problem: The more you work to develop a certain resilience skill, the better you become. The more you get good at it, the more you like to do it but the less it does for you because the skill becomes a specialized tool – a specialized tool that's super powerful in a certain context.

The irony is that you lose your ability to flex and adapt as needed.

What keeps your resilience skills fresh is working right at the edge of your comfort zone with openness, present-moment awareness, and taking committed action in the service of your deeply-help values.

And that’s exactly what the Engineer Resilience Challenge is designed to do.

So if you want a science-based system to increase your psychological flexibility and boost resilience that enables you to respond to challenges and disruptions no matter what.