When making your New Year resolutions – whether they involve very personal matters like ridding yourself of excess weight, changes you’d like to bring to your family, or how you conduct yourself at work – consider and respect the power of homeostasis.

This is the systemic pressure for things to return to “normal”. It’s the pressure that resists change. It’s the force that wants things to go back to the way things were.

Think of the power of homeostasis as an influential undercurrent, an invisible force. It’s why losing weight in the short term is easier than keeping it off in the long term. It’s not only that you may just get slack about watching what you eat. It is more than that. Your body is reaching for, even aching for, a state it once knew.

Understanding homeostasis will help you understand why some people will leave one abusive relationship only to appear to welcome another.

It’s why the “new broom” boss was only able to change things at work for a short time.

If you can accommodate the power of homeostasis in your plans you are more likely to succeed.

Understand this pressure is real.

Embrace it, build your plans around it, and you are more likely to harness it.

Awareness is a powerful tool.