Why you are failing at your goals
It’s about that time at the start of the year where you’re either knocking your goals out of the park and you’ve been taking some massive action, or you’re finding yourself having a very difficult time. Let me tell you, I’ve been in both places. I want to talk a bit today about why you are failing at your goals, if you are finding yourself in those shoes at the moment – and let’s face it most of us are – first and foremost know that you are not alone.
Setting too many goals
I mean, let’s start with the obvious one here. The first reason you might not be moving towards reaching your goals is if you’ve set a few too many goals for yourself. I personally like to set one goal for each area of my life that I talked about in this post. Because we are busy women and some of us are mamas, we carry a lot on our plates and it’s really easy to say I want to get “all the things” done this year and set the bar extremely high for ourselves. Focus – which we will talk more about in a moment – on one very specific goal in these areas of your life: Spiritual, Marriage, Family, Personal, Financial, Career. If you like to break your goals down a bit, then give yourself quarterly goals for each of those areas of your life versus piling it all on yourself all at once.
When you give yourself very intentional goals in the areas of your life that matter the most, it’s easier to go after them without feeling defeated and wanting to throw your hands up and call it quits.
Do you want to be known as a quitter or an overcomer?
Lack of focus or not knowing what to focus on
I’ve had a few calls this month talking about goals with different members of my team, and the most consistent question I’ve gotten is “How do I know what to focus on?” When you have a lot going on in your life, it’s really difficult to know what is the most important thing to be focusing on.
First, let me say that you can’t do 100 things at once. I’ve had people in my life that like to do a million things at once, and guess what happens? Everything gets done half way and doesn’t reach its best potential. Choose one thing and do it really really well, versus a lot of things and doing them half way.
Another thing you can do is my planning your year all at once exercise. Map it all out…. literally ALL out. Then step back from your calendar and see what you can start taking away and saying no to. Ask yourself, what on that calendar is going to be fruitful and what potentially won’t be. You won’t know what to focus on truly until you cut off some of the things that aren’t or won’t be fruitful in the end. If you’re struggling to get ahead on your goals, prune back some so that you can flourish in the important areas.
Not being organized
I’m an overachiever, extremely organized, and a perfectionist. This means I have a lot of ideas, am really good about organizing them in the order of importance, and I don’t like anything done sub-par. I want everything to be at it’s best. This was how I was built, but I realize not everyone on this planet was built this way.
If you’re not an analytical type A personality like me, take a step back and ask yourself how you can get yourself more organized so you can streamline your processes moving forward.
For example, if one of your goals is to book a certain amount of clients in a year, how can you organize your process right NOW so that the onboarding process or project deadlines keep you on a schedule of reaching your goal? If your goal this year is to read the Bible all the way through, then get out a planner and write in a time slot that is completely dedicated to reading the Word every single day of the week.
In the last year, we have created processes for every single thing that we do here at Restored 316, down to how we write and publish a blog post, and I can honestly tell you it’s made the biggest difference in how our business runs and how much more we are able to get accomplished, thus reaching larger goals.
Analysis paralysis – The inability to act
Are you an over analyzer and like to have all your ducks in a row before taking action? You are so not alone! I’m very much this way and like to know for certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my brilliant idea and goal I set into motion will not, under any circumstances, fail.
“Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.” – George Edward Woodberry
Listen, nobody likes to fail, but would you rather be a year down the road from now and still asking yourself if your idea would fail? Or, if even in the end if it does fail, would you rather take action and know that you gave it your best effort and learn a lot of lessons along the way to take into your next goal?
When I launched Pink & Press, I had that idea in my mind for years. Literally years. I kept second guessing myself because I knew it was something that hadn’t been done before and I wasn’t sure what the market would look like for something like that. It took a lot of prayer and gentle nudging by those closest to me to give it a shot. If it didn’t work out, then no big deal, at least that idea wasn’t floating in my head and I wasn’t always wondering what the outcome of it would be. After years of my analysis paralysis, I buckled down and launched Pink & Press. At first, it was a huge success … then it fizzled. Partly because I learned very quickly that it wasn’t where my heart was, and that people trusted our brand and wanted our product from our website. So, in the end, I walked away from that experience knowing that I gave it a lot of effort, and I learned an awful lot of valuable lessons along the way. And to top this off, I have never once felt like a failure about that business model. It simply wasn’t for me and I’m perfectly content with the lessons it taught me.
Failing to have a proper Plan
If your goal is to read the Bible all the way through this year, but you put zero plan in place to make it happen, do you think you’ll reach your goal? I can nearly guarantee that you won’t. Go print off my Goal Setting worksheets and create a task list and put a very specific plan together to help you stay on track.
“You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great” – Zig Ziglar
Listening to the wrong voices
Friends, you will have people in your life that will encourage you to take action on the goals you have and love you through it. And you’ll also have friends that will tell you that your goals are a bit silly and you should probably set a new one. Choose wisely the voices you let infiltrate your mind and take root.
We teach our children about good fruit and bad fruit in relationships. If someone hands you a delicious looking apple you’re going to take it and eat it … this is good fruit right? If they hand you a rotten apple you’re going to look at them like “what are you doing?” and you’re not going to eat it … this is bad fruit right? If someone is giving you bad fruit in the words they are speaking over you, you have a choice whether you are going to take it or not.
No accountability
You must, must, must have an accountability partner in your life that will help keep you on track. Get together once a week with a dear friend and hold each other accountable for the goals you are both trying to reach. If you don’t have anyone in your life that can be a great accountability partner, give yourself a weekly challenge to log your process through social media and your followers will, in turn, hold you accountable.
This is why so many people have business coaches. That coach isn’t only helping encourage them along the way, but they are helping them break their goals into tasks, and then holding them accountable along the way. Some of the most successful people are where they are today because of an accountability partner.
Final Thoughts
This isn’t about getting it all right, all figured out, and reaching 100% of your goals 100% of the time. This is about going after something with intention so that you can actually accomplish it instead of continually putting it on the back burner. Give yourself plenty of grace and freedom to make adjustments to your goals as you see fit… because like I’ve mentioned before it’s about Grace Not Perfection – in the wise words of my friend Emily Ley.
“If you aim at nothing, you will
hit it every time.” – Zig Ziglar
I want to hear from you… what are your biggest struggles in reaching your goals? Where do you find yourself hung up the most? Leave a comment below and I’d love to be able to encourage you in that.
