By Trina Robertson, MS, RD
Trina is a registered dietitian nutritionist with a master’s degree in nutrition. As a HealthyEating.org Mom she shares her positive approach to healthy eating with the goal of inspiring others to prepare and enjoy foods from all the food groups. As a Project Manager with the Dairy Council of California, Trina develops, evaluates and promotes nutrition education materials for students and adults. At home she enjoys cooking and sharing meals with her family. Her most rewarding accomplishment is that her boys are good eaters and are learning to cook. Follow Trina on Twitter@TrinaR_RD and find more Healthy Eating ideas on Facebook and Pinterest.
Parent’s note their infant’s milestones with great excitement. Baby rolled over at two months old, next she’s crawling, 
then cruising and suddenly you’re child-proofing your house because she’s walking. While these changes seemed to happen quickly, think about how many months it took of slow progression learning to walk.
Many of us set our New Year resolutions around health and some of you may already be experiencing setbacks on your goal. Instead of abandoning self-improvement, think about what you set out to achieve. How you can you break down the steps of your goal to start with a crawl rather than a run?
Using behavior change science, we’ve outlined Seven Steps for a Successful Resolutions (infographic below), and one is breaking down your goal into small steps. If your goal is to improve your health by eating breakfast, break this down into steps. If you decide to start with yogurt for breakfast because of the many health benefits of yogurt confirmed by scientific research and then put it on the grocery list.
After you’ve purchased the yogurt, what is your next step? Deciding how often and when to eat it. Don’t forget to think about the where- home, work, after your workout, in the car. Then as you complete each baby step towards your goal, you’ll have a feeling of accomplishment and stay motivated to keep going until you’re eating yogurt every morning.
Check out the complete list of steps to setting a successful resolution and you’ll find yourself crawling, then walking and finally running toward great success. For more tips and information on getting the new year #Off2aGoodStart, visit Dairy Council of California‘s site and read, Success with New Year Resolutions
