Non resolutions

January of each year is just an arbitrary time for change.  Change can happen any time.  Hope can happen anytime.  What I want to know, what I wish research would focus on, is what are the most effective ways to make personal change.  The universal problem is that people make resolutions (me included) and then....well, you know....All that actually happens is that we feel discouraged and bad about ourselves.  I have read that the problem is that we are hardwired for short term pleasure rather than long term success and that overcoming the drive for short term pleasure is extremely difficult to overcome.  At the very least someone surely has interviewed people like me who always say, "this is the year I lose 20 lbs"  but who still weigh the same at the end of the year and then finally actually did it.  Okay, National Institues of Health - where are you spending my tax dollars?  All that research into heart conditions, diabetes, etc. would not be needed if we had the answer to the qeustion of how to get ourselves to hang in for the long term.  There are lots of opinions and lots of ads on T.V. but where's the research that proves what will work?