Most people have dreams and goals that they want to achieve in their life. The problem is, not everyone is willing to do everything they have to in order to reach their goals and dreams. Being successful is not an automatic thing once you set a goal or have a dream.
It’s hard, but it’s worth it when you finally accomplish a goal that you’ve set out to achieve. Few things worth having come easy, and if they are, they are often under-appreciated.
Chasing dreams and making goals happen is not easy. There are often issues that come up making it not a simple task. That’s why some people give up in the middle, some even when they’re close to victory. Others don’t make a start, or never figure out what they want until it’s too late.
But in the end, it is up to us to continue on no matter what issues come up, and conquer the challenges. Amidst all the work we throw in to attempt to reach our goals, some efforts end up wasted, unfortunately.
Here are some of the reasons why people fail to achieve their goals in life.
1. Failure to Set Clear Goals to Achieve
Having clear goals is important. If you say you want to “be rich” or “have a successful business”, you can’t quantify it or work towards it. There are no action steps you can do to get closer to those goals. If instead your goal is to make a certain amount of money per month, you can work towards that. If you say you want to write a book, it’s something you can work towards as well. You can set specific actions that you can do so that you move towards your goals. Without specific and determined goals, you won’t know exactly what actions you need to take. This means that you might be doing things that don’t bring you any closer to your goals at all. That’s why having clear goals is important.
2. Lack of Motivation
When you’re setting goals, you need to make sure that they are aligned with who you are or want to be. If you don’t feel strongly about the goals, you won’t be motivated to work towards them. If you don’t have a strong “why” you’re working towards a goal, you won’t put the effort into it. In other words, the intention of making it happen must be very strong, otherwise, nothing else will push you forward when things get hard. Think of it this way. When there’s something out there that you really want, you’re more than willing to work hard to get it. You’ll put more time and effort into it, working hard at it until you get what you want. But if there is something out there that you “should” do, but it isn’t important to you, you’ll come up with excuse after excuse so that you don’t do it.
Procrastination can stop you in your tracks, and if you don’t have a strong “why”, you won’t be motivated to achieve your goals. It sounds dramatic, but big goals need to be driven by a strong purpose to allow you to weather conditions like the passing of time, inevitable setbacks, and the possibility of failure, among others.
But if you personally own your goals and have strong reasons why you are going to achieve them, you will triumph over these things. You will have the motivation to do whatever it takes to reach that goal. A strong, emotional ‘why’ will often drive you to make impossible things happen, so trust in that when you are making your goals.
3. Distractions
Being single-minded about a goal means being intensely focused, determined, persistent, and somewhat a little bit obsessed about a certain idea that drives you to relentlessly work on it day in and day out. Most people have goals to achieve, but fail to translate the idea into a reality because their actions are inconsistent and their thoughts scattered.
If you let too many things distract you from what is important, you won’t be able to accomplish your goals. Also, acting on too many things at once will not bring about the channeled energy required to make your goals happen. You have to stay focused and steadfast towards achieving your goals every day until you see them finally becoming real. Put in the commitment and focus to make your goals a reality and don’t quit on it until it’s done.
4. They Don’t Think They Can Do it
If you doubt you can achieve your goals, you won’t be able to. That’s because in order to achieve them, you need to whole heartedly believe that you can do it. You have to know in your mind that you can do it, even if you have things get in your way. Things will always come up while you’re working towards your goals. If you have doubts, you won’t be able to push past them and keep doing what you need to do. You need to believe, to know that you can do anything that you want to do.
5. They Don’t Put the Work Into it
You can’t set an intention and expect to achieve anything without putting the work into it. It’s great to have goals and dreams, but unless you put the effort into it, nothing will happen. The goals and dreams will always stay as goals and dreams. You must put energy and effort into something if you want to achieve anything. You need to come up with action steps, and then actually do those action steps first. Only then will you be able to move closer to your goals and then eventually accomplish them.
6. Lacking Accountability
You may set clear goals and know exactly what to need to do to realize them, but sometimes lacking accountability will be enough for you to fail. This involves doing all the things you’ve set out to do even during the times you don’t want to. It demands tracking your progress and making sure you keep going even if you fail at something.
Accountability means staying committed to making something happen because not accomplishing those goals would be unacceptable to you. It’s choosing your goals over any excuses you may have. If you are unable to hold yourself accountable, you can find someone else to be accountable to. Sometimes by sharing your goals with someone else it helps you be accountable and you’ll keep going even when you want to quit. It doesn’t matter if it’s a coach, mentor, friend, family member or anyone else, as long as someone knows your intentions. Be 100% accountable to yourself (or someone else) in achieving your goals and in due time, you will reap the benefits of success!
7. They Give Up
There are a lot of reasons that people give up on trying to achieve their goals. They might find it’s taking too much time, or it’s too much work. They might find that they’re stuck and instead of trying to find a way through it, they stop completely. A person could get sock of working so hard, and instead of taking a small break, decides to stop completely. Most people will at some point have an obstacle or difficulty in what they’re doing. Those that end up achieving their goals will keep working through it. Unfortunately, others will give up instead.
If you have a strong desire to achieve your goals, you won’t let anything stand in your way. You will do whatever it takes to get there, and will work through any issues you have. It might take a lot of time, but you will eventually get to where you want to be.
