Everyone has goals. Some are written down. Some are pie in the sky abstract dreams. While having a clear goal is certainly the first big step in the journey of achieving goals, there are many things we do intentionally and unintentionally that make goal achievement near impossible. Let’s see if any of these 5 things are holding you back from achieving your goals.
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5 Things Holding You Back from Achieving Your Goals
1. Not Knowing What Your Goals Are
People can be so complicated!
We are complicated.
At any moment, we can feel overwhelmed and frustrated that we haven’t been achieving our goals and yet moments later not even know what our goals are!
I already know you want to be a goal achiever because you’re reading this.
Your desire to achieve goals is not under scrutiny at all!
But what I am willing to bet is you may not have a very clearly defined goal in mind.
Maybe you kind of know your goal, or have an abstract idea of it, or a general sense of it, but it could be further defined.
So tell me (telepathically of course), what are your goals?
Did you feel something inside when you read the question like maybe you don’t exactly know what they are?
Here’s a few ideas to help you go from general goal idea to specific goal clarity.
Read these and then consider your general goal with how you can make it more specific.
| General Goal | Specific Goal Alternative |
|---|---|
| I want to retire early. | I want to be financially independent at age 50. |
| I want to be healthier. | I want to develop a routine of eating at least 3 cups of vegetables per week and exercising at least 4 times per week. |
| I want a better social life. | I am going to reach out to a friend or family member twice per week to catch up and get together with someone(s) twice a month. |
| I want to become a more savvy business person. | I am going to read 30 minutes of industry related news or educational material and connect with a mentor at least once a month. |
| I want to be a better parent. | Love is spelled T-I-M-E with my children and so I am going to focus on having one-on-one time with each child at least once a week where we do something they love AND start placing my phone away from me during evening hours. |
2. Not Writing Your Goals Down
Did you know simply writing your goals down has been clinically proven to increase your liklihood of success by 42%!?
And yet…how many of us write down our goals?
Can we just collectively agree that we are going to start writing our goals down right now?
I know what you’re thinking because I think the same way.
“Ugh. Pen. Paper. Boring.”
But 42%!!!
Achieving goals is hard. We all know it. We need every bit of support on our side to become goal crushers and that means we MUST write down our goals.
If I asked you to show me your goals, could you?
If you couldn’t show me a physical or digital list of your SPECIFIC goals, I couldn’t take you seriously.
Without a written list, I simply don’t believe you care about achieving your goals all that much.
So just stop thinking about it.
Stop wondering if you should.
Stop assuming the 42% study is made up and…
JUST
WRITE
DOWN
YOUR
GOALS!!!
3. Trying to Achieve Your Goals Alone
People are social.
Animals are social.
And people are quite often social animals.
In all the good, bad, and hilarious ways we can take that.
Despite all of humanity’s negative attributes, and there are quite a few, we are stronger together.
“Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
Ephesians 4:12
What’s God’s word telling us?
We are stronger, better, and more capable when working together.
We can achieve more goals when unified with one or even two other people.
What’s that look like you wonder?
I’m glad you asked.
We all have strengths and weaknesses.
Over a decade ago, I went into business with my best friend doing drop-shipping sales online for men’s merchandise (think sports collectibles, man cave decor, power tools, outdoor gear, etc.).
My best friend was and is incredibly charismatic.
He can sell ice to an arctic fox.
He’s social and comfortable speaking to strangers and building friendships all over the world.
But he hates sitting behind a desk, dealing with operational minutia, and iterating technology improvements to the nth degree.
I was and still am sort of the opposite.
I enjoy working behind the scenes and out of the spotlight.
I enjoy operational improvements, getting the details figured out, and focusing on administrative efficiencies.
Separate, we wouldn’t have been very good drop-shippers, because it requires a bit of both personalities.
But together, we had an incredible time, learned a ton, and achieved some awesome financial and business goals like generating over $270,000 in revenue, listing tens of thousands of products for sale, and building relationships with large distributors.
Together, our strengths were amplified and our weaknesses were compensated.
Your one or two other people may not be business-related.
You might just need a mentor.
You might just need a friend.
A spouse.
A teammate.
Whatever type of person you need, you do need someone.
Even if you could be successful alone, coming alongside someone else or two other people may just help you break through the roadblock you’re currently facing in life.
4. Expecting Goal Achievement to Be Easy, Fast, and Fixed
Let’s just burst this bubble super quick.
Achieving goals is not for the faint of heart.
As the saying goes, if it was easy everyone would be a goal achiever.
But health, fitness, and success are multi-billion dollar industries for a reason.
We’re all looking for ways to achieve goals easier, faster, and with guaranteed results.
In reality, goal achievement is hard, slow, and often subject to change.
Usually, we are looking to fix or improve lifestyle habits that have been created and reinforced over decades of repetitive actions.
Our neural and environmental pathways are so ingrained and locked in, it takes weeks of intentional, tough effort to change.
Let’s focus on eating as an example, since so many of us want to do better with what we put into our bodies.
Our eating habits are influenced (and reinforced) by childhood, school, work, opportunity, money, time, convenience, stress, emotions, and even geographical proximity.
It’s naïve to think we can just make healthier decisions and it’ll all work out.
No.
Success in eating and any other area of our life comes down to a beast-like intentionally where we go to war with what we have come to accept as standard.
We have to inject our will upon our environment.
We have to go to battle against our own feelings and desires.
We have to challenge our preconceived notions of what can or should work for us.
With any goal, we are going against the grain in our lives.
Achieving goals will be a hard road. Get ready for it.
Achieving goals will be a long road. Prepare for it.
Achieving goals will be a wild road with unexpected twists and turns. Gather support for it.
5. Not Accepting When a Goal Should Change
I am all for you achieving every single goal you’ve written down.
It is natural though to recognize that as we toil and strain to achieve a goal, we may learn the goal isn’t right.
It doesn’t mean your goal wasn’t good or OK for you.
It simply means what we thought was good to pursue before is no longer good to pursue.
Let me explain.
If financial independence matters to you, and you care about making the hard decisions to retire early, consider this.
Let’s say you have a written goal to retire at age 45.
You’re working hard and saving hard, learning financial wisdom, and have cultivated a life towards financial freedom at age 45.
But as you get closer to age 45, your desire changes and you realize you’d rather keep working until age 50.
Maybe you realize you won’t have enough money to retire at age 45.
Maybe you realize a big purchase is necessary at age 44 and it would bring more fulfilment to change your life in that way than retiring at 45 would.
Your original goal to be financially free at 45 wasn’t wrong or bad or foolish. It was a great goal!
But now, in this current season of life, the goal needs to be modified to remain in line with what is most important to you.
If we hold fast to our original goal, we could get ourselves into quite a bit of trouble simply to say we achieved our goal!
I’d much rather change my goal and be excited about it then sticking to an old goal and step into a regrettable situation.
Here’s another example or health minded people.
Let’s say our goal is to complete a marathon.
We train and train, run and run, but over time realize we are not happy because we are losing time with our children.
Do we stick to the goal simply to cross it off the list at the expense of our other priorities?
No.
We must adapt it.
Maybe the goal changes from completing a marathon now to completing a marathon when the kids have left home.
Maybe the goal changes to completing a half-marathon now and a full marathon when the kids are gone.
Do you see how being strict can have a negative effect on us?
Now, be careful!
It’s easy for us to abandon our goals because they are hard and I don’t want you to do that.
We should only modify or adapt our goals as new information becomes available and we have more clarity to better goals for us in the different seasons of life we journey through.
If this content spoke to you, consider 3 things:
- Leave a comment below and tell me what is holding you back from achieving your goals and what some of your goals are. Writing them down here will count towards your 42% success rate! As long as you keep coming back to look at them 😉
- Subscribe to my newsletter so you get more content just like this delivered right to you. I hate spam too, so I’ve made my newsletter a 1-click unsubscribe at any time you change your mind. Encouragement and insight will be in your inbox for FREE!
- Share this message with your social network, friends, or family. All of us can become better goal crushers and live more successful lives at work and home.
