Find something that makes your good intentions worthy, but a bit more fun.

My goal with the column this month is to help keep you focused on your goal. If you've been taking my advice so far this year, you will have picked just one major resolution for 2012.

At this point, my guess is that all the usual demons are creeping in to steer you off course: busy schedule, bad weather, busy schedule, bills to pay, busy schedule….you get the idea.

My suggestion, then, is to find something that makes your good intentions worthy, but a bit more fun - and without all the denial you might assume will equal success. Hence, the chocolate.

If your goal, like mine, is to get fitter and healthier over this coming year, you will be delighted to hear about a recent study that showed the potential role of chocolate in exercise performance. New scientific tests suggest that chocolate can have a surprisingly great impact on our body's response to exercise. Before you get too excited, however, it's worth bearing in mind that it's not altogether in the way that we might hope for and probably not at the level of consumption that we might wish.

Nevertheless, scientists at the University of California, San Diego, among other institutions, arrived at this theory through feeding middle-aged, sedentary male mice epicatechin, a purified form of cacao's primary nutritional ingredient, and then making them work out on a treadmill as part of a controlled study.

By and large, the mice that didn't receive epicatechin were the first to give out during the treadmill test, with even the control mice growing tired more quickly than the non-exercising mice that had been given epicatechin. The fittest rodents, however, were those that had combined epicatechin and exercise. They covered about 50 percent more distance than the control animals.

Biopsies of the leg muscles of the mice in the study offered some explanation for these results, showing healthier muscles and more fatigue resistance among the mice receiving the cacao extract.

Now, even though mice are not people, Dr. Francisco Villarreal, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the authors of the study, estimates that five grams of dark chocolate daily, which is a sixth of an ounce — about half of one square of a typical chocolate bar — is probably a reasonable human dose if your aim is to intensify the effects of a workout.

As I said, not exactly the quantity some of us chocolate lovers would wish for.

What did strike me about the study, however, is that combining what we need to do with what we like to do is probably the best way to stay on track, particularly when faced with the temptation to ditch our good intentions.

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going,” according to American motivational speaker and writer, Jim Rohn. To get us to that place where our effort becomes a habit, we all need a little sweetener.

There are various little tricks you can use to help keep you motivated and on the path to success, starting with good old-fashioned bribery. Make a deal with yourself to claim a reward when you reach a particular milestone or finish a task that takes you one step closer to your goal. It may be chocolate (note the recommended quantities!) but equally it could be any one of the things you enjoy doing. If your goal is to stop smoking, for instance, save the money you would have spent on cigarettes to buy yourself something you might otherwise have considered frivolous. Or, if you are feeling philanthropic, donate it to a good cause.

What about those days you are simply not feeling up to it? Act like you are. Now, while I'm all for being yourself, there are times when you simply have to fake the motivation and enthusiasm because, whether you like it or not, you have to get that task accomplished. Surprisingly, when you act motivated and energised, you can fool yourself into believing it, at least for long enough to get the job done.

Over the coming months, stay focused on the purpose of your resolution and the difference achieving it is going to make in your life. Think of all the activities that you are going to have to undertake to reach this big goal and develop a daily strategy to stay on top of them. 'One day at a time' isn't only a motto for the alcoholically challenged, so find your chocolate – or whatever represents chocolate to you – and include judicious amounts of it each day to keep you going.

I leave the last word to the author Zig Ziglar: “People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.”

Author of 'Everyday Heroes – Learning from the Careers of Successful Black Professionals'. Available online from www.everyday-heroes.co.uk and on order through booksellers. ISBN 978-0-9569175-0-8