It’s February. How are you doing on those New Year’s resolutions? Since we’re a month into 2012 already, can you give me a “thumbs up?”

Or are you more like the bulk of society who can feel the initial determination and enthusiasm of a month ago starting to wane?

The 30-day mark in a goals program is a reality check. It’s typically when willpower starts to sputter like a car in cold weather. Unless you do something different, you’ll end up on the side of the road again, frustrated and resigned.

First of all, New Year’s resolutions aren’t a bad thing. It’s human nature to want a clean slate, an opportunity to start fresh.

It’s also natural to resist discomfort and to avoid pain (or at least the perception of pain). Pain can be as simple as changing a habit or as complex as changing a lifestyle or belief.

Change is often perceived as negative. It appears to be attacking our stability, and when it becomes too difficult, our tendency is to react with fight or flight. When that happens, our brains are hard-wired to return us to our new default pleasure: acceptance of the old status quo.

In a recent article in Shape magazine, clinical psychologist and author Steve Levinson states: “The brain is wired — beautifully so — both to picture things as they could be and to figure out what we’d have to do to actually make them that way. That wiring is a defining characteristic of humans. It’s our best stuff. It’s what’s responsible for the fact that we no longer live in caves.” He adds that, unfortunately, our brains are poorly wired to follow through with dreams of what could be.

Breaking old patterns

To begin fully integrating a change into our lives, we must break old patterns of behavior. That could mean pushing away from the table before dessert in order to lose weight or waking up at 5 a.m. to hit the gym. When the initial luster wears off, there has to be something else in place to see it through or it becomes an exercise in futility.

Intention alone is not enough. Stack the deck in your favor. For example, if you needed to wake up at 4 a.m. one morning to make an important client breakfast meeting in St. Louis, you’d at least set the alarm. You might enlist your spouse to help make sure you were out of bed at that time. And to make your morning even easier, you’d select your wardrobe or iron a shirt the night before.

The same process is important for your goals or resolutions. First, remind yourself of how important they really are to you.

Grab a piece of paper and write down what the goal means to you. Think through why you don’t want to end up missing the mark in that goal area and write down why it’s really important to you. Be honest with yourself. This gets you past the mental justification of why it’s too hard, why you should quit or why it was a silly idea to set this goal in the first place.

Rally the troops

Next, enlist support. Find help, rally the troops and sound the alarm It’s amazing how many people will come to your aid if you ask them. It’s likely there are others who are trying to accomplish a similar goal and would appreciate the camaraderie that comes from running down the road together.

I remember the time I was consistently up every morning at 5 a.m. with running shoes on. No matter what the weather or how badly I wanted to stay in bed, I was outside. Why? Because I knew that my friend and running companion Melinda was waiting for me. To let myself down was to also let her down. Consequently, I was in the best shape of my life.

If your goal really is important to you, don’t go it alone. Accountability is beautiful.

Finally, be honest about potential barriers and set up a plan to work around them. Break your goal down into bite-sized pieces.

In sales, for example, you may set a sales goal. Great! Set it and then forget about it. Focus instead on the daily or weekly behaviors you know will get you there. Hitting a sales goal is about making a specific number of calls every day or week.

From there, it’s as simple as the “lather, rinse and repeat” directions on a shampoo bottle: Set a goal, identify behaviors and do those behaviors.

It’s only February. Keep going — you’ve got this!