Kick the habit of New Year's resolutions NEW YEAR's resolutions are made with breaking bad habits in mind, but resolutions can often be bad habits in themselves, finds Ray Philp It's January 1st, 2013. You are, not to put too fine a point on it, probably hungover. As your sofa heaves under the weight of your Christmas dinner, the leftovers of which you are manfully wading through, you're watching Back to the Future III (the one where Marty McFly refers to himself as Clint Eastwood, and there's a flying steam train. I wouldn't recommend it) silently yearning for the arrival of a Delorean, if only to delay your return to the office. A few chocolates linger in the Quality Street tin under the Christmas tree, which would be tempting if only they weren't the orange ones. Scenarios such as these can't help but provoke the annual bout of self-loathing that exaggerates your bad habits and perceived personal inadequacies, to a point where the need to set out vague and over-ambitious personal goals - better known as "new year's resolutions" - takes over. But it's only once you go back to work that the real anxiety kicks in. Discussing your resolutions with a colleague often uncovers the possibility that his or her vision for 2013 is not just a similar collection of vague, over-ambitious personal goals, but a gym membership starting next Tuesday and an obscure avocado-bacon diet championed by a lizard-faced Californian doctor. The most common new year's resolutions are, perhaps unsurprisingly, ones that appeal most to our vanity. Not that there's anything wrong with wanting to look and feel better about yourself and all, but aiming for modest gains makes much more sense than setting yourself up for one spectacular flake after another. Especially because you probably tried all of the these ones last year: Joining a gym You are definitely going to flake out of this if you think you're going to enter February two stones lighter, filling a spandex onesie with muscles that even Popeye's cartoonist would baulk at. In the same way that you don't cure an agoraphobic by dumping them in a field, you might want to reconsider paying £47 per month to the muscle palace in favour of something more achievable in the short term - a brisk run outside, perhaps (even if it's for the bus that you're always late for). Going on a diet As is usually the case for people with an unrealistic set of new year's resolutions - especially when it comes to diets - common sense is trampled on, like line dancing wildebeests, by the illicit rush of novelty that imagines a three-course meal of cayenne pepper, water and maple syrup to be a really good idea. It does, in fairness, sound like an entree at the Fat Duck, but chopping just one or two things from your fridge might be punishment enough. Quit smoking It's not as if there isn't enough advice available to dissuade you from stopping - we'll spare you a patronising run-down of the health risks, and it's graphically illustrated on every cigarette packet anyway - but being banished to a damp plastic shelter outside of your office, or a tiny restaurant awning, all the while feeling like a coal-fired chimney pumping out unfiltered evil in the middle of the Trossachs, seems like reason enough to sack off a 20-a-day habit. How to wean yourself off? Don't look at us - look at your packet. Learn a new skill Aah, bonjour! Wie gehts? Muy bien! You'll be that person in no time, if only you could find the time in amongst all those pottery classes you've signed up to; but then you've got judo once a week as well, and hey, isn't knitting back in a big way!