7 Mistakes That Keep You from Reaching Your Goals

When it comes to goal setting, it’s easy to get demotivated especially if you don’t see immediate results.

In this week’s email, I’ll share with you the 7 mistakes people make that hinder their progress and success in reaching their goals.

My clients went from having a scattered brain to becoming a professional goal-achiever by just knowing about these goal blunders, and now it’s your turn!

Now the first mistake I see that keeps most people stuck is…

1. Betting too low on yourself

Some people get scared at setting goals because they just don’t like failing. The irony is when you choose to live a life without growth or challenge, you end up feeling like a failure too.

Some people do set a goal, but they keep it at bare minimum for the same reason – this way I won’t feel too bad if I don’t hit it.

The problem with this is when goals are too easy, it does not spark inspiration and scientifically, doesn’t activate the autonomic nervous system which you need for growth.

Any process without inspiration will feel like a job where you will end up doing it half-baked or not doing it at all.

Without a sense of challenge, it can feel like there’s no point in even trying.

The solution:

Enquire to the part of you that downplays yourself. You can ask yourself these questions:

• Do I feel unworthy of achieving that goal? Why?
• If you take away the how, what’s the ‘what’?

Know that you’re not being strategic by lowballing on yourself, you’re simply projecting a limiting mindset you have not yet questioned – nothing wrong with it, it’s innocent, but it’s not going to serve you in your next level.

2. Setting unrealistic goals

The flipside of Point No. 1 is also a blunder – setting goals that are unrealistically high.

When I was still studying at school and at Uni, I used to use fear as a motivation.

I would tell myself that, to maintain my honor, I have to set extremely high standards for myself.

Example: My goal is to perfect every quiz and exam, that way, the effort I put in reviews is for perfect marks. Given that I may feel lazy at times, the effort I would make will at least only let me miss at most 5 marks.

I would constantly doubt my efforts and results, using fear and anxiety to maintain a certain level to the point of not even celebrating myself, my results and enjoying any of it.

Even when people congratulate me, I would deflect their good remarks because I feel threatened if I celebrate it too much, it will disappear. Obviously, this is all unconscious.

Sounds familiar? Haha, I know!

While all these served me for a while, I graduated with honors from grade school to college, it certainly didn’t work for me especially when I started building a business.

One of the biggest reasons why ideas don’t get delivered and businesses fail is because of perfectionism.

In business, it’s not just about the most unique idea (nothing new under the sun), but it’s about who puts it out first.

In life, it’s not about the amount of wins you get, but how many failures you make. If you don’t make mistakes, then you’re not trying something new. If you’re not trying something new, then you are not growing.

So, life and building a business isn’t about who has the shiniest and biggest goal, it’s about setting realistic milestones that gives you the next piece of the bigger puzzle.

You cannot scare or doubt your way out of the ‘real world’ or when you are trying to share your magic to the world (business).

Scientifically, a goal that is too unrealistic doesn’t recruit enough of the autonomic nervous system that helps you make that pursuit likely.

The solution

Set realistic + challenging goals that are at least 70% believable and achievable.

3. Confusing results with process

Some people set goals that are actually the process and not the result.

Example:

Booking 10 sales calls is a process. Signing up one client is the result.

Publishing social media post 5x a week is a process. Getting those post views and followers to sign up to your training or newsletter is the result.

Achieving a promotion is a process. Becoming an embodied, true leader is a result.

Committing to review every night is a process. Getting honors is a result.

Some people focus on the results too much that they forget about the process. This leads some to impatience, anxiety, and crippling fear.

Some others focus on the process too much that they lose track of the end-goal. This leads to ‘busy work’ that accomplishes and closes nothing.

It’s important to focus on the process to achieve consistency, but if you don’t have the end-result in mind, you’ll end up throwing spaghetti on the wall.

The solution:

Write your goals based on your results.

Write your tasks based on your process.

Goal-getters focus on getting good at the process without losing track of the end goal.

4. Giving up too early

If you’ve done the first 3 points, I am pretty sure this 4^th point won’t be an issue.

Unless nobody told you to practice measuring your results.

However, there are times when you meet people that present you with different opportunities that are somehow related to your goal, but not really.

This is prevalent especially if you’re at the early stage of building something.

People who love starting something and not finishing it are infected with what we call – the shiny objects syndrome.

They get bored in the process while waiting for the results, so whatever ‘somehow-related-goals’ come their way, they get distracted and they either move to this next or add it on top of what they are already doing.

The problem with giving up too early on your goals without properly measuring and assessing them is, you don’t finish anything.

Since we need to see results to keep us motivated in growing and challenging new feats, giving up too early and always moving on to the next shiny thing will do the opposite.

Sure, sure, the opportunities are enticing and promise big things, but as you grow older, you learn to trust your gut feelings and intuition more.

While it’s tempting to walk on a path meant for others, even when you know your calling is different, it takes trust, faith and focus to stay on your lane and keep at it until you see the results.

You gotta trust yourself and the choices you have consciously or unconsciously made because deep down – you know it.

Stay true to who you are. 🤍

5. Juggling your way through

I used to overwhelm myself with many goals at a time.

I thought that when I do this, I will ensure I do more and somehow tied my identity to being a goal-getter.

That is until I got burned out juggling too many things at a time.

I realized that with fewer goals, it not only creates focus, but also momentum and confidence.

The solution:

Align your effort behind fewer goals to get faster and bigger progress.

Example: If your line manager is asking you to do too many things at once, ask him/her what his/her priority is and be clear what you can only achieve at a time ensuring quality.

6. Omitting the specifics

Sometimes, we set goals that are vague in order to not disappoint ourselves.

What’s more disappointing though is working on too many things with no clear focus on what to accomplish because you’ve set your goals way too vague.

The solution:

Review and rewrite your goal to make it more specific. Want a coaching tip? Do not just write what you want to achieve but also how you want to feel achieving it. The best shortcut to achieving your goal is listing down how you want to feel and explore if those feelings are already here in anyway. Build up from the momentum of gratitude and abundance rather than lack and always feeling like you are not yet there.

Example:

Vague – I want financial freedom.

Specific – When I achieve x monthly business income replacing 70% of my current salary, I will quit my job. Financial freedom for me means being able to work wherever I want to whilst making this x amount of money per month. I want to feel free, happy, and content while achieving this.

7. Skipping the review

The easiest way to NOT accomplish your goals is by forgetting to review and track them.

The reason why new year resolutions always fail is people only look at them every year and forget breaking down those goals to quarter and monthly.

If you don’t review your goals every month, there is a higher chance you will forget them.

The solution:

Breakdown your annual goals into quarterly and monthly goals.

Further breakdown your monthly goals into a list of high impact tasks that you aim to achieve every week.

Make sure you write it ALL down in a notebook and review them.

Set a monthly calendar invite or alarm to review them.

Adjust your goals accordingly as you sail along.

I hope these points help you set better goals for your personal and professional life.

Feel free to comment below and share the link to this blog with someone else who needs to learn this.

Ad astra,

Dane