Becoming a goal setter is a tag that is always attributed to success, but it becomes frustrating watching your goals crash irrespective of the work you put in to make them strategic. A new year won’t grant a green pass to achieving your goals, one of the ways to get things right in the coming year is to understand the reasons why your goals keep failing.
Nobody wants to be identified with failure. Nobody wants to bear the tag of a mediocre, a backbencher, nobody wants to be associated with redundancy. We want to be identified with success, we want to bear the glorious tags as champions, goal-getters, achievers, and warriors. But do our dreams always end as reality?
Ever asked yourself; why do people fail in life? I always fail no matter how hard I try, could there be some writings on the stars that make failure my crown to wear?
These days success seems like a highly elevated throne that is specifically reserved for a selected few and no matter how hard you try, you will never get there.
These are just myths. The only difference between the successful and those who are not lies in how they do things, pursue goals and map out plans.
There are principles to success and until you have a grasp on them, success might sound strange to you. The journey of a champion does not stop at setting goals but leading it to the end. However, there are certain reasons why people fail to achieve their goals. Understanding these reasons might give you a glimpse of the things you should avoid if you want to be successful.
Six Reasons why your goals keep failing.
1. Procrastination
Let us wait till the beginning of January. Oh! The economy is going down, let’s wait till it rises. These things are too difficult, the competition is high, there is still time, let’s start later. Do you think nature knows time or time knows nature?
That’s failure speaking to your mind in the most romantic form. Goals fail when we procrastinate when we feel the time is on our side and there is enough reason to push them forward. Procrastination breeds excuses which in turn births limitations. If you want to achieve your goals, you will stop spending time looking at the clock and begin work immediately.
2. Distraction
Another reason why people fail to reach their goals is that they lose focus to pursue it to the end. Goals require a lot of commitment, focus, diligence, and concentration. A greater amount of failure to achieve goals is attributed to leaving the diamonds to gather stones. Most people forget the initial reason why they set their goals, they lose sight and vision and place their attention on less important things.
These distractions might come in any form; Fun, pleasure, peer pressure, miscellaneous activities, having a lot on your table makes it difficult to focus on a single task and pursue it to its end.
3. Your Goals are not defined.
Unclear goals are no goals at all. Goals that are unspecific, invisible are difficult to achieve. One of the reasons why your goals fail is because they are not clear, direct, and specific.
People make big mistakes by contradicting wishes with goals. A goal is meant to have a direct structure, a feasible plan, and an understandable strategy.
Let us assume that your year’s goal is to earn $120,000. This goal should be divided into smaller bits that are easy to achieve. You can split it down to $10,000 a month which is roughly $334 each day. You can go as far as mapping out means, aids; business plans that will help you achieve this feat. Vague goals will always produce vague results.
4. Inconsistency
What happened to the talented athlete that couldn’t reach the finish line? He is remembered as a bright athlete that started on a hopeful note but couldn’t lead on to the end.
A lot of people are quite lazy to push their goals. You set goals that you want to lose 20 pounds for the year, but you are not able to stick to a 30 mins exercise plan each day. The fat won’t burn automatically, it is your duty to make it work.
If you must achieve your goals, you must be strong and tough enough to fight it through. One day at a time, without any process.
5. Inability to handle Failure
The shocking truth about champions is that they get used to failure before embracing success. They build their mindset to a thought pattern that understands that not every move will amount to success. You will fail at a lot of things. You will fall, fail, and crash. You will make a mess of yourself and even wish that you never started.
How you deal with failure determines how far you are willing to go. Failure will make you want to switch business, dump your company, abandon your dreams, and start another, failure will force you through an emergency plan.
However, how you handle failure goes a long way to tell what you will make out of your goals. Understanding how to handle failure entails that you know when to call it quits and when to move on. It teaches you how to embrace determination and fight to the end.
6. Giving up too soon
What do you do when nothing is working out? Give up and shy away or learn your mistakes and get better?
Your response determines if you will achieve your goals or if they will keep failing as they always do. The human brain is wired to embrace positivity, and most people find it hard to process negativity, setback, and mishaps.
During your goal pursuit, difficulties will arise, setbacks will surface, challenges from different angles will stare you in the face, but your response determines your next line of action.
The blacksmith doesn’t dump the metal when the heat becomes intense, he pans on, as hard as he can, between the pain and heat, his eyes are fixed on the goal, he wants to carve out something from the hot metal.
Achieving goals are not an easy task, they require a lot. But it will be beautiful and satisfying to see you walk it through to the end.