I love this time of year, when so many suggestions are proffered about new year’s resolutions. Things to do to be happier, eat more sensibly, do more exercise, give up smoking and/or alcohol, enjoy friends, do voluntary work, ditch old routines, go “at risk” with out-of-the-comfort-zone adventures, and so on. Then, within a few short weeks, come the inevitable confessions about shortfalls between resolution and implementation.

It reminds me of the struggle to get people to implement well-intentioned action plans after participating in a course. Ironically, the more uplifting the experience of the course, the greater the difficulties of transferring lessons learnt. The rarefied atmosphere of the course can over-enthuse people to such an extent that they lose touch with the reality of their back-at-work situation. As a consequence, their action plans become unrealistic. They temporarily (alas, only temporarily!) forget how alien their working environment is when it comes to personal improvement plans.

There are some obvious solutions to the transfer problem. Abolishing off-the-job courses would mean there was nothing to transfer from one environment to another. Waving a magic wand over working environments so that they instantly became enlightened, learning-friendly, places would also do the trick. Alternatively, we could treat courses like holidays, where people are simply expected to enjoy themselves without any expectation that they transfer anything back to the workplace.

Tempting though all these possibilities are, I favour a more mundane solution where greater attention is given to creating action plans that are doable. I use a simple mnemonic as a guide: L-E-A-R-N, where L is for limited (one plan at a time), E is for exact (dot the i’s and cross the t’s), A to for appropriate (tailor-made for the person), R is for realistic (tailor-made to the situation – warts and all), and N is for now (no delays – get cracking straight away).

If new year’s resolutions were equally robust they’d have a better track record when it comes to implementation. Without the L-E-A-R-N criteria they tend to be laudable intentions, too dependent on fickle willpower.

But I’m being a spoilsport. Surely making new year’s resolutions is a bit of harmless fun and failing is an amusing reminder of our fallibility. It is all a bit like laughing when people fall over; even funnier when you know you shouldn’t be laughing.