According to a University of Scranton study, only 8 percent of people who make New Year’s resolutions actually achieve them. One way to beat these odds when you’re trying to lose weight is to set reasonable and manageable goals.

Unrealistic weight-loss goals are pitfalls that only serve to disappoint and discourage. While setting a high initial goal of weight loss may provide short-term incentive, it can often bring about feelings of failure week after week when you have yet to achieve this lofty, far-off goal.

Chunking goals is the process of breaking large goals up into smaller, easier achievable goals so that you get to celebrate and enjoy positive reinforcement all along your weight loss journey. But in order to chunk, you must be comfortable with the concept of patience.

While it may not take that much time to put on excess weight, taking it off is a totally different matter. Most weight-loss experts suggest losing an average of two pounds a week for a safe weight-loss program. So a person who needs to lose twenty pounds might chunk their goals down to focus on losing two pounds a week, or eight pounds a month. Realistically, a person in such a situation may be able to lose those twenty pounds within ten weeks.

The time frame may be different for those who need to lose more than twenty pounds, though no less successful. This is where patience comes in. Instead of setting out thinking you need to lose fifty or 100 pounds, set your goals at five-, ten- or twenty-pound increments. This way, small successes encourage long-term commitment and determination to finish a program. These short-term goals help you reach milestones faster and maintain long-term diet and exercise programs more successfully.

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