How to Make New Year's Resolutions That You'll Keep

As a new year approaches, many of us vow to turn a new leaf, to improve ourselves somehow --- we make a New Year's resolution. We resolve to: lose some weight...do some more exercise...maybe quit smoking. And often, that's as far as it gets. The intention is there, but we don't quite carry it out.
Is there a way to do better? ideastream's David C. Barnett put that question to Dr. Keith Novak, a Family Practice Physician with the Ohio Permanente Medical Group. Why does it seem those New Year's resolutions end up being jokes?