We'll be 10 days or more days into January by the time you read this, and I'm willing to bet that most of you have already given up on one or more of your New Year's resolutions.

The key to success with any resolution — personal, business or otherwise — is willpower. We all start out with the best of intentions, but when you set yourself a goal and fail to reach it, it's always because you quit at some point.

Once you have set a goal for something, it all comes down to execution. Or to use some other popular words from the self-help literature: dedication, commitment, persistence, perseverance, stick-to-it-ive-ness, pigheadedness and ruthlessness.

Whatever name you assign to it — and before you wrinkle your nose in disgust, name one self-made billionaire who was not utterly ruthless getting there — this trait or quality is what separates the winners from the losers in life 99 percent of the time.

One of my all-time favorite quotes comes from Calvin Coolidge, president of the United States during the roaring 1920s: "Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

Or if the thought that a Republican might actually be right about something makes you gag, here's one from Richard DeVos, the co-founder of Amway: "If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down 70 times and get up off the floor saying, 'Here comes number 71!'"

Whatever you call it, let's be clear about something: It's not fun. It is work, and work, by definition, is not fun. Anyone who tells you that you can reach a goal without suffering — that you can actually lose weight while eating cupcakes — is lying to you, pure and simple.

I have written more than 15 books in my life, on topics ranging from selling on eBay to making partner at a law firm. I am proud of each and every one of them. But the truth is that sitting before a blank computer screen and realizing you have to fill 300 pages before your publisher will pay you anything (or will demand a return of their advance, which you've probably already spent) is not fun.

Anything worth doing in life requires hard work, pain, suffering and sacrifice. Get over it, and get going.

In ages past, it was easier for people to accept this. Up until only a few decades ago, most people accepted the proposition that life was a "vale of tears" that had to be endured stoically so you could finally die and go someplace where maybe you could eat cupcakes without gaining weight. Look at photos of people from the Victorian era. Notice how nobody smiles? People back then probably weren't much fun at parties (most of them would have viewed enjoying oneself too much as a sin), but they were tough, they never complained, and they got an awful lot done.

The idea that hard work, obstacles and suffering as mankind's daily lot is a tough sell for us spoiled-rotten Americans of the second Millennium who are — let's face it — a little too easy on ourselves.

Nowadays we all want everything, including our work, to be fun and entertaining. Just look at those Silicon Valley companies that create playrooms for their employees. Where are the Puritans now that we really need them?

If you lack the discipline to persevere in your work, your business or your life, here's a little self-motivation trick: Scare yourself silly.

Instead of visualizing success (what all the motivational speakers tell you to do), visualize yourself failing miserably and suffering the worst-case consequences. If you want to lose weight, picture your doctor telling you you've just developed type 2 diabetes and may need to have a limb cut off. If you need more revenue from your business, picture yourself losing your house, your spouse and kids and moving into a tenement if your business fails.

One of the dirtiest secrets of life — a truly inconvenient truth — is that fear is a great motivator, perhaps the greatest. Once you're haunted by the prospect of failure and have lost sleep by staring hard into the abyss, you'll find inner resources of strength you never suspected you had, as well as creative solutions you wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

As a rock-climbing friend of mine says, "When you're hanging from a sheer cliff face 200 feet off the ground, you're not thinking about anything but handholds and toeholds."

Cliff Ennico ([email protected]) is a syndicated columnist, author and former host of the PBS television series "Money Hunt." This column is no substitute for legal, tax or financial advice, which can be furnished only by a qualified professional licensed in your state. To find out more about Cliff Ennico and other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit our Web page at www.creators.com.