I think repeating the mantra that big changes are hard sets people up for failure. It is easy to make big changes if you set your goals small but at a rate of increase.

Making a 50% change in how you eat can be daunting. Making 50 changes of 1% each week is pretty easy. Yes, you have reached your goal after a year rather than a day, but your chance of success is much, much higher.

I've done this so many times in my life that even this process is just another incremental habit. For example, today I did my first full workout using a new app that a friend recommended. I had been using another app for years, but was unhappy with some key features.

I did not spend hours reading up on the new app and trying things out. I manually put in my last week's worth of workouts to get a feel for the user interface. Today in the gym I tried a couple more features. Some things didn't work as I expected or wanted. I did not stop mid-workout to try to figure them out.

Going forward, I'll try one or two things every workout, and in probably a month or so I'll have a good idea how things work, without ever having to make a big change all at once.

Most everything in life is like that. Not everything, but most things. Break big changes into little changes and make that first change today.

A bonus is that you won't ever need to make New Year's resolutions ever again.