Ever wonder why so many New Year’s resolutions fail?

Three words are to blame: resources, processes, and profit formula -  or, RPP, for short.

Think of it like this: every day each of us prioritizes certain outcomes that we’d like to optimize (eating well, getting more exercise, meeting new people). To achieve these outcomes, we adopt a certain set of routines (or “processes”), which deploy the resources we have on hand (i.e., time, money, etc.), in order to help meet those outcomes.

Over the course of a year, as we continually reinforce these behaviors, we effectively engrain ourselves with specific RPPs, which are designed to achieve certain outcomes.

The problem is, once we decide that we want to optimize a new outcome – or resolution – we fail because we don’t yet have the right RPPs in place to achieve this goal. For this new resolution to succeed, we’d need to establish a new set of RPPs, specifically designed to that goal.

So, if you’re looking to get fit in 2016 and you’ve spent the past year refining processes that efficiently deploy the resources of Netflix, pizza, and your couch, now may be a good time to start re-thinking your 2016 RPPs.