Not reaching your goals? Two reasons.

Not reaching your goals?

Here are the two major reasons.

Having been an avid goal setter for many years and teaching this concept to audiences around the world during my career, I recently decided it was time to fess up with what is important when it comes to goals that are not achieved. So, here we go - there are two types of people when it comes to goalsetting:

People who set goals and these folks have two outcomes – they achieve some and they fall short of others.

Then there are people who don’t set goals and often achieve stuff they didn’t plan for and don’t achieve stuff that isn’t important to them.

See the subtle differences and common situations here? If not go back and re-read the two short definitions.

If we look briefly at each type and outcome above there are two common issues that either prevent or contribute to goal achievement.

One – if you are not achieving your goals your expectations are too high, unmanageable and/or just not possible.

Two – if you are not achieving your goals your actions, activities, behaviors are falling short of what is necessary for achievement.

So, I’ll keep this easy – want to have greater success when it comes to reaching your goals – lower your expectations or improve and/or increase your activities/actions.  Sound simple?  Well, yes, the first one is – just stop setting your goals so high but the second one is a bit more challenging.

Improving or increasing actions to achieve better goal success can be a complicated, intricate and often cumbersome issue.  Let me explain – I’ll give you just a few examples then elaborate on just a couple.

1)You want to lose weight but need to keep your part time job at a fast food place.  2)You want to start saving more money every week but have 4 kids and more bills than you can count.  3)You want to start exercising every day but work 18 hours a day and have no time left for yourself.  Need I go on?  Okay here are a few more – you want to improve the quality of your marriage or relationship but your boss needs you to work weekends for the next 3 months.  You want to spend more time with your kids but they are both teenagers and don’t have time for you.  I could go on for pages with this stuff but I’m sure you get my point – and that is – that any goal that involves other people or impacts other people gets a bit complicated and can’t always be achieved alone or without others’ cooperation or understanding.

So, what’s the answer – just give up on your goals or dreams?  No. Never.

It’s a three-step process. Step One – ask yourself – how important is this goal? How badly do I want it?  Am I willing to sacrifice something else that is important for it?  Do I have the time, discipline, history, courage etc. to achieve it? There are other questions, but the point is if you don’t answer them honestly, you are setting yourself up for failure. Step Two – If the answers are – let’s go for it – then break the goal into small baby steps and focus on one baby step, not the whole goal - at a time.  Just keep moving in the right direction - day by day, week by week, dollar by dollar, lap by lap -  at a time.  Just keep moving in the right direction and before you know it you will arrive at your destination.

And Step three – reward your short-term progress and success.  And then yes – reward your long-term success with a special reward.

Yes, there are other goalsetting steps, actions, requirements that you can and often should take for success.  It’s not my intention to say that goalsetting is as easy and simple as stated above, however as one who has achieved many goals that were never set goals in the first place and not achieved many that I set and worked towards for years - let me tell you – keep your expectations manageable and doable and just keep taking small baby steps in the right direction and you will be amazed.