Building a New Habit Starts with These 5 Steps Start small and have a plan.

If you're like most people, you probably have countless goals and aspirations: eating a more balanced diet, saving money, exercising more, being a more engaged parent. Prepared to make a major life change with your sights set squarely on perfection, you fail — if not immediately, within the first few weeks.

According to Marti Hope Gonzales, an associate psychology professor at the University of Minnesota, 80 percent of people who set New Year's resolutions fail or have forgotten about their resolutions by the second week of February.

So, what can you do? Are all attempts to change doomed to fail?