With barely half a month left in 2018, the lunch rooms and halls are crowded with babble about everyone’s New Year’s resolutions.

Apparently, everyone is going to suddenly turn their lives around and have two percent of body fat.

That doesn’t seem very likely, now does it? Most of us will get to Jan. 21, realize we haven’t done anything and say it was a practice month.

However, if you’re like me, the first quarter of the year is one consecutive “practice month”.

According to Dr. John Agwunobi, chief health and nutrition officer for Herbalife, “only about 8 percent of people actually achieve their New Year’s goals.”

With this in mind, the whole New Year’s resolutions thing seems kind of pointless since it’s all just words.

There are basic steps we can all take into account when trying to reach our goals.

Something we all seem to look over when creating our resolutions is planning how to actually get things done.

Yes, this is the boring part to most people, but it’s important in reaching any goal.

For instance, if weight gain or loss is your goal, find a gym near your house or try out the weight rooms here at H-F.

If you can’t find a good regimen or time to fit it in your life, it’s probably not that important.

Write down what you’re aiming for and keep it in plain sight. This way, you’ll see it everyday and feel shamed into at least attempting to achieve something.

It’s easier to make an insane list with the excitement of a new year creeping up, but we’ve only got so many options when it comes to actually completing that list.

We’ll either burn out and go right back to our old ways, complete our list and rub it in everyone’s face or realize “becoming the real Dr. Frankenstein” is a bit far fetched.

Therefore, if you’re really about your resolutions, help yourself out and make a reasonable list that you can actually enjoy completing.

You can make sure you can do this in many ways, such as a joint resolutions list with someone you like to be around. With this you can hold each other accountable and make it more fun on the day you’re tired of eating carrots.

Or try competitor lists if competition is your sole motivation in life.

Give yourself a timeline for specific goals if you can control the pace at which you achieve them. You can’t control how fast you gain muscle, but you can control how many books you read in three months.

To keep it interesting, get at least two goals that involves something that makes you uncomfortable.