Many people will be hoping to make changes to their lives as the upcoming Year of the Pig commences. Xu Haoyu looks at the different ways in which you can achieve your commitments.

Pan Shuo got a cat on Jan 5. It wasn't a rash decision. Rather, he'd wrestled with the idea for more than eight months. "I was afraid to make a commitment," the 31-year-old Beijinger says. "I was so happy to have realized one of my New Year's resolutions when I followed through."

Pan graduated from the University of Toronto in 2010 with a degree in mathematics and statistics.

He has since worked in finance and is currently employed by a State-owned investment fund.

Pan normally works 10 hours on weekdays. He sometimes doesn't finish until around midnight when he has projects.

The fact that he's often busy at work seemed like a persuasive excuse for not getting a cat.

He'd often visit friends who lived in his apartment building to get some "love" from their pets.

His friend, Beijinger Yang Zeyu, who met Pan in Toronto, says Pan would glow when he petted his furry friends.

"He'd even buy pet supplies like wipes and litter during online shopping sales to give us," Yang says.

Pan says: "Playing with friends' pets is easy and fun because I can always say 'good night' and go home with fur stuck to my clothes like souvenirs. But raising my own pet is totally different.

"That's signing up for a decadeslong commitment that lasts for its entire life. It's a huge responsibility. You have to take care of their food, water, home and health. I could never do it halfheartedly."

The turning point came around New Year's Eve.

Pan's friend Shen Yuan, 30, who has known him since high school, had him watch her toy poodle, Wansan, when she spent four days out of town.

Pan relished the experience. He recalls waking up missing the animal's bark the first day after the dog returned home. The house seemed too quiet and empty.

"I made a decision then and there," Pan says. "I agreed with what Yang said. He said that one decision can have many possible outcomes. But nobody can see the path forward until they actually step onto it."

So, he bought Bunker, a longhair tabby, from an online pet club.

He was thrilled.

He bought two brushes, two cat beds, four cups to measure meals and enough cat food to fill a drawer.

"I felt much better after taking action compared with when I was hesitating."

Small steps

A Chinese saying goes, "The first step is always the hardest."

This ancient adage seems especially true for young people today, says 23-year-old Chen Ruohan from Zhejiang province's Qingtian.

Chen, who works in an internet company, says she'd tried to learn how to cook but gave up the moment the tap water made her hands cold.

She planned to read a book. But she'd give up two minutes after cracking it open.

She wanted to get into shape. She booked a personal coach but stood him up each time because she thought the gym was too far away.

"I make plans," she says.

"But sometimes I feel powerless to follow through. It's too relaxing and enjoyable in my comfort zone. I often fail to push myself out of it."

She finally fulfilled her New Year's resolution to read after a gathering with former high school classmates. She played with her phone silently for nearly an hour to hide her embarrassment when her classmates discussed new books she'd never heard of.

The experience hardened her resolve.

Two days after the gathering, around the new year, Chen started a small book club with her friend, Lu Yi. The group meets every two weeks to discuss the books.

"I've been told since childhood that good habits help us," Chen says.

"But I didn't realize that small steps could make such a huge difference."

Toughening up

Pan also struggled to leave his comfort zone.

Bunker was born with a medical condition that makes him secrete extra tears. The feline also struggles to clean himself since he has a flat face and long fur.

Pan's friends say Pan was initially overwhelmed with anxiety by these unexpected issues.

He'd pace around his home with a bitter smile.

But Pan again stopped dithering and took action.

He repeatedly visited a nearby pet shop to ask about raising a tabby.

He took Bunker to the vet for exams and got eye drops. He started wiping the cat's face and brushing his fur at least twice a day. And he often mops the floor together with a robotic cleaning device to provide a clean environment for the pet.

"Bunker stepped into my life and knocked me out of my comfort zone," Pan says, sitting at his desk with his cat half asleep nearby.

"He opened the door to my heart. This let in troubles and anxieties but also sunlight."

Many people will also make resolutions for the Lunar New Year, which starts on Tuesday.

But 88 percent of New Year's resolutions aren't kept, according to a 2007 study of 3,000 respondents by Richard Wiseman from the University of Bristol. The study also found 52 percent of respondents started the year confident they'd follow through.

But sometimes the act of making resolutions is satisfying in itself, even if people don't achieve them, US monthly magazine Popular Science quotes Tim Pychyl, a psychologist at Carleton University in Ottawa, as saying.

Chen agrees.

"I feel happy just thinking about realizing goals," she explains.

She plans to continue reading, she says.

Nairobi-based psychologist Kenfrey Kiberenge suggests starting with small, specific goals in a 2013 article in the Kenyan newspaper Daily Nation.

Concentration and concreteness could help people sustain their resolve, she believes.

For instance, plan to not eat any junk food for a month rather than setting the goal of losing 10 kilograms, she suggests.

Goals should also be achievable through controlled action rather than luck. For instance, finding a spouse within a year is a goal that's largely out of your hands.

Resolutions are more sustainable when they're shared because they're mutually beneficial and reinforcing, Italian author Frank Ra says in his 2011 book, A Course in Happiness: An Authentic Happiness Formula for Well-being, Meaning and Flourishing.