Commonly Broken New Year's Resolutions

About 40 percent of us will resolve to change our lives in some way in the new year, and the majority of us will fail. Here's why—and how you might be able to beat the odds.

By Corrie Pikul

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Work Out

Why it's tricky: While health club attendance surges 30 to 50 percent at the start of the year, it's usually back to normal by March, according to data from the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association. It's also hard to incorporate exercise into a busy life: Norcross himself admits that his resolution is to exercise five times a week—usually not a problem, but will be a major challenge when he's traveling.

Make it stick: Research has shown that "self-monitoring" (a clinical term for charting or recording your progress) increases the probability of you keeping your resolution. This is due to the Hawthorne effect, which causes us to try harder when we think someone is keeping an eye on us. Try MyFitnessPal, a tracking app that's a streamlined upgrade of the paper fitness diary.

Published on December 28, 2012

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My Life Is A Joke: Meet Lisa

Lisa Laureta engages audiences by mixing her character work with storytelling and classic stand up techniques. Born and raised in Colorado, Lisa ventured to Chicago to acquire proper comedy training at iO, The Second City, and The Annoyance. She has performed at iO on two Harold teams, an incubator team at The Playground, and performed sketch and improv shows at Second City's Donny's Skybox, The Annoyance, Studio Be, The Pub Theater, Stage Left, Gorilla Tango, The Playground, and The Cornservatory. She's a featured voice on the web series <i>HR</i> and was a cast member and writer for the live sitcom at iO titled <i>That's the Gig!</i> She's also had the pleasure of performing at the Del Close Marathon in New York City and recently took her one-woman show to Colorado. Since turning her focus to stand up and solo performance, Lisa has performed at many clubs and venues around the country and within Chicago including The Laugh Factory, Zanies, Chicago Underground Comedy and The Lincoln Lodge. She recently became a cast member and head of the charity/outreach committee for the stand up show 100 Proof Comedy. Lisa wrote a cartoon that is currently being animated and will be self-released by the spring and is consistently creating new humorous videos and working on a re-launch of her one-woman show. She is a marathon runner, dog lover, singer, vegan, and advocate for many charities. Her ultimate goal is to make a sole living from performing and writing comedy, by any means necessary!