A New Year’s resolution is a promise you make to yourself. Keeping that promise isn’t easy, though. Sometimes we choose resolutions that are impossible to keep because they’re too broad or beyond our capabilities. Or the plan falls apart the first time the going gets tough.

Still, there can be benefits to making resolutions, even if we only keep them for a short time. Here are a few to consider. The specifics are up to you.

• Volunteer.

• Exercise. If it’s not fun, try something else to get the same result.

• Make a difference in someone else’s life.

• Sign up for a month of gym classes.

• Don’t talk about health or weather when the kids or grandkids call.

• Cross things off your to-do list.

• Read every day.

• Take up a sport. Get a few lessons so you get a good start.

• Buy a few extra cans of food each week at the grocery store and deliver to the food bank at the end of the month.

• Work the newspaper puzzles daily.

• Acquire a new skill.

• Break an unhealthy habit and acquire a healthy one.

• Learn to meditate, and do it every day, or try yoga or Tai Chi.

• Listen twice as often as you speak.

• Sign up for a class. When it’s over, sign up for another one.

• Borrow travel videos from the library.

• Subscribe to a new monthly magazine, or read it at the library.

It’s OK if you break a resolution. It really is. Just try again and adjust your goals, or pick another one. Perhaps one of your resolutions will become a pleasurable habit. After all, it’s all about creating a new beginning.