WHEN it comes to New Year Resolutions, we can be so half-hearted. Get fit. Quit smoking. Lose weight. Stop scratching. It all sounds very worthy, but what difference would it really make? Even if we were to accomplish everything on our list, would we really be a better person?

Sure, we could be stronger, healthier, leaner and less itchy, but would it make us any happier? Maybe what we really need is not to address these cosmetic issues, but to look deeper into ourselves. Less fiddling about on the margins, and more rooting around in our densest undergrowth.

This is where Jinny Ditzler comes in. The author of a book based on the coaching courses she has been running for 25 years, Jinny promises to help you make all your dreams come true. According to Jinny, just three hours is all it takes to turn your life around and become the person you always wanted to be.

Her approach comes with praise from Professionals and Judge John Deed actor Martin Shaw and theatrical producer and Everton chairman Bill Kenwright, as well as Men are From Mars author John Gray and a host of company chairmen.

The seeds for her Best Year Yet approach were sown on New Year's Day in 1980. Jinny and then-boyfriend, now husband, Tim were wondering what to do in the year ahead, when they hit upon the idea of running a marathon. Months of gruelling training culminated in them both finishing the Paris Marathon that year.

When the next New Year's Day came around they found that, thrilled by completing their marathon challenge as they were, little else had changed in their lives. But it was the experience of setting a goal and then reaching it that inspired Jinny to repeat the exercise, this time listing a number of targets for the year ahead. This proved to be the birth of the Best Year Yet.

The principal is to set out the Top Ten Goals, reached through answering the Ten Best Year Yet questions. It has not only provided the foundation for the Best Year Yet workshops which have now been running for almost 25 years, but it is still an exercise that Jinny and Tim repeat every year.

Not only has it seen them each set up their own business, both of which are still running, but it has also proved valuable in their personal life. Hard work and long hours had taken a toll on their marriage, but instead of allowing it to drift away, they confronted the challenge and transformed their relationship.

The result is that Jinny says there is no similarity between her life today and that 25 years ago, and she is blessed with a lifestyle beyond anything she ever imagined as a child.

Her philosophy is that the secret of personal success is the same as the secret of success for businesses: setting goals and planning ahead. While this comes naturally to us when younger - we get an idea of what we want and how to get it - as we get older, she says this goal-setting becomes less specific. Instead, we begin to react to circumstances and no longer stop to think about our goals.

Eventually, we feel our lives are out of control. We feel we have no choice in doing the things that have to be done, and by the time we've done them we're too tired to think about doing anything else. When we do set goals, something always gets in the way and our enthusiasm fizzles out.

"Too often our most important goals are not set with the belief that they can really be achieved, so that before long we lose momentum," Jinny says. "We've forgotten how to keep our attention on what we've accomplished rather than on our failures and mistakes.

"We forget how to live our lives remembering what we do well, and therefore stop building confidence in ourselves and our ability to succeed."

Every time we don't achieve our goals, she adds, we believe in ourselves a little less. We come to think we are not capable of making meaningful changes, and stop setting goals, thinking up excuses as we go. We become passengers in our own lives. Jinny's aim is to make us get back into the driving seat.

The first task is to find the three hours to do the Best Year Yet course, instead of doing what we would otherwise do in that time, the tasks we consider essential, whether it is the washing, the shopping, the cleaning or paying the bills.

"Those things always get done," says Jinny. "It's not those things that are the problem - finding time to plan your life is the problem, but once it's done, it makes far more difference than getting the laundry done."

She likens the process to gardening. Before we can hope to change our lives around, we must first prepare the ground, by looking at our achievements and failures over the previous year. This allows us to both let go of our disappointments, and remind ourselves of our successes.

"We lose sight of the strengths and gifts we do have and then fail to use these gifts to make the changes we want to make. We don't take steps towards the goals that are most important to us, because we don't think we can," Jinny says.

"As you begin thinking seriously about the year ahead, you are reminded that you do have the ability to set and achieve new goals."

She admits that even when she had been running her Best Year Yet workshops for years, she had still put off her dream of writing a book, always finding excuses not to do it. She even subscribed to a magazine for writers, but this only increased her feelings of guilt and frustration. Eventually, a remark by friends spurred her into writing her book.

"Most of us become comfortable thinking of ourselves as smaller than our problems, feeling a victim of circumstance and blaming others for the fact we don't have what we want," she says.

"My blaming other people and situations for not being able to write my book robbed me of this goal for years. I had made myself impotent. There is always someone and something to blame in our lives. It becomes a habit and not an easy one for any of us to give up.

"The alternative to playing the victim is to become tougher in ourselves and start taking personal responsibility for our own lives."

She says while it's true that some people seem to be born with a drive to succeed, this doesn't mean everyone else is out of the race. "The trick is doing it, taking that first step, making it happen," she says.

"While it's important to find out what stops you and why, what works best is just getting on with it. Understanding your limitations can come later."

* Your Best Year Yet by Jinny Ditzler (HarperElement, £7.99)