This is the week when we set about changing ourselves.

Or at least we make promises to do so. Lose weight, get a new job, stop smoking – we mentally plan to do all these things.

But do we achieve them? Three-quarters of us don’t.

Around 78 per cent of people struggle to fulfil their New Year resolutions. We get all fired up on New Year’s Eve but within hours we are back into our daily routines and those grand plans are forgotten.

Year after year I ask myself why is it so difficult to incorporate a few extra activities into my life? I haven’t got an answer. Do I have time to attempt to write a novel? Can I fit in a daily jog around the block? Do I have chance to decorate the house?

The answer to all these questions is, if I really wanted to, YES.

So why don’t I fulfil these resolutions and do all these things? It must be down to lack of drive, of energy, of get-up-and-go. I used to have it – most definitely.

At one time in my life, if I wanted to do something I would take pains to do it, but now, in my fifties, I can’t muster up the enthusiasm. Sometimes, I wonder whether I have any enthusiasm left.

“You and dad are so boring,” my youngest daughter frequently tells us, as we try to explain how we enjoy evenings in front of Countryfile and Antiques Roadshow.

I’ve certainly got more drive than my husband. I still organise days out and holidays. If it was down to him we would never leave the house. But I don’t have the spring in my step and the eagerness that I used to have, particularly when it comes to trying new things.

I am, to coin a well-used phrase, ‘set in my ways.’ And people who are set in their ways shouldn’t make New Year’s resolutions.

Of course, this can’t possibly account for the vast majority of the population who fail to fulfil their pledges. Many will be lively young things with boundless enthusiasm for everything. What’s their excuse?

Maybe it’s the pressure of having to do something by a certain date. It’s a bad job when a year is too short a time to spur us into action. But years do, as we say when we grow older, fly by.

I’ve been planning to write a novel for the past 20 years. I often picture myself sitting at the keyboard in full flow, but have yet to type one letter.

Maybe, whatever our age, we are all just plain lazy. Sadly, I think that’s the most likely explanation.