Maybe you've tried everything, including bribing yourself (If you go to the gym, you can come home and watch The Bachelorette!) and guilting yourself (You spent so much on that membership-you have to go). But you just can't seem to get into a regular fitness routine.

One of the newest buzzwords in self-improvement is ACT, a type of therapy designed to help you develop your "emotional agility." And that is key to achieving your goals, says Steven Hayes, PhD, a psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Reno: "Emotional agility affects how well you do in business, if you succeed in sports, and whether you stick to your diet and exercise regimen," he says.

ACT (short for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) involves a combination of mindfulness techniques and behavior change strategies that help you focus on what's important to you, and alter your behavior to support those values.

Preliminary research suggests it might be worth a try if you're struggling to fit in more workouts. A small study published last year in the British Journal of Health Psychology found that people who were asked to follow a walking program and were also counseled in ACT were nearly five times more likely to meet the activity goals than those who didn't receive counseling.

Final step: find your motivation. Goals are great-like running a marathon, or fitting into those jeans you've been hanging on to since college. But ACT pushes you to go deeper, and identify higher-level motivations, like wanting to be a positive role model for your kids, or wanting to dance the night away with your boyfriend.