The new owners hang an Under New Management banner to lure past customers in. The undertone—we aren’t going to do things like before—reminds past loyal patrons not to give up on them. January is a time to embrace the Under New Management sign in our own lives. We remind ourselves it’s not time to give up.

1. Discomfort. Habits will only be replaced when you reach a boiling point of some point. Essentially, you have to cause yourself pain with your habit in order for you to resolve to change it. Look at the habits you want to change—which are causing you the most discomfort?
2. Persist. Habits take between 21 and 90 days to form. If it is a habit that you have been struggling with for years and it continuously ends up on your list as a priority to change, stick with it for 90 days before you give up. Given our general lack of focus as a culture right now, most will succeed with the long approach.
3. Replace. One habit is replaced by another. Smokers start chewing gum, drinkers start drinking coffee, and eaters become knitters. Each time the new habit was reached for the new habit took its place. Success in changing means you need to figure out what will replace it. What will quench the same need the current habit fulfills?
4. Experiment. Make a change. Then wait for another 30 days to see if it sticks. If not, analyze the whys, readjust, and try it again. Always look for what the habit provides for you. Keep asking why until you reach the bottom—the core of the issue.
5. Focus. Change too many at once and you’ll have 20 half-baked new habits. Most of us could fill up a page with all the resolutions we want to make. Go ahead and make that list, but be sure to sort it into piles of “Must do this year” and “Next time”.