Why People Don't Always Achieve their Goals

For most of my life having goals has been important to me. As a leadership coach I have encouraged my clients to set goals. My experience is having goals enable us to achieve things we wouldn’t have accomplished otherwise. So why is it then that having set goals we sometimes fail to achieve them?

Here are my reflections on the reasons we can fail to realize our goals.

?

1.???????? Our Goals Are too General?

Generalized ‘’goals’ such as: lose weight, buy a home, travel overseas are difficult to achieve. In reality they are not goals at all - they are simply wishes. Real goals need be specific: eg. lose 10 kgs, save $50k deposit for a 2 bedroom home, spend 2 weeks in Japan next year. (As I shall explain later other elements apart from being specific are also required.)

?

2.???????? Our Goals Are Unrealistic?

Another reason our goals are not achieved is because they are unrealistic. Unrealistic because we’re not prepared to commit to them, we have too much else to do, we’re not sufficiently prepared or they’re just plain impossible. Our goals need to be both realistic and achievable. However, not so achievable that we can just sit back on ‘cruise control’ and expect to achieved them. Any worthwhile goal requires some degree of effort that will stretch us. But not so much that it stretches us to breaking point.

?

3.???????? We Get Distracted?

From my experience one of the key reasons clients have failed to achieve their goals is because they become distracted by other things. This is the reason I now ask my clients to rate on a scale 1-10 how committed and motivated they are to achieve their stated goals. Research shows unless people are at least 80% committed (and preferably 90-100%) they’ll never achieve their goals.

?

4.???????? We ‘Bite off More than We Can Chew’

Some people are inclined to take on more goals than they can realistically cope with. I’ve found more than 3-4 significant goals in the same time period are invariably too many.

?

5.???????? We Can’t Say No

If we’re a people pleaser and find it hard to say no we will spend so much of our time responding to other people’s goals and requests that we end up not having enough time to attend to our own goals. Now certainly there are times when we may have to lay aside our goals for a while to support others, especially the important people in our lives such as our life partner, other family members, friends in need, comply with new instructions from our boss as well as responding to crises and emergencies.

?

6.???????? We Experience a Change of Direction

Sometimes a key event occurs in our lives that causes us to change our goals. Usually the experiences will be related to a romantic relationship, a family crisis, an important opportunity, or a dramatic change in our beliefs, values or sense of vocation. For example, when I was a young adult I had the goal of becoming an HR consultant. After completing a relevant qualification and being employed as an HR assistant I gained a position in a large business equipment company specializing initially in recruitment and employee benefits. Following a significant spiritual experience I discerned a strong sense of call to church ministry leadership. Over the following 42 years I served in different positions as a local church pastor, a denominational consultant and finally as state chaplain in a denominational community service organisation. I retired from that last position to develop my own leadership coaching and consultancy business.

?

7.???????? We Haven’t Adequately Prepared

As implied earlier in point 2, if we haven’t prepared ourselves sufficiently we are unlikely to be successful. Because all goals that are worthwhile will stretch us (if we didn’t find them demanding we would have probably achieved them already), commitment, training and preparation will nearly always be necessary.

?

8.???????? We Don’t Know When We’ve Arrived

It’s not only important for goals to be specific and achievable they need to have a ‘by when’ date so that we can measure our degree of progress on achieving them. Without a time-frame we will also struggle to schedule our time and energy appropriately.

??

Finally…

When Don Bennett, the first amputee to successfully scale Mt Rainier, was congratulated on his amazing achievement he replied, “I couldn’t have done it alone!” Bennett was acknowledging the incredible work and encouragement of his support team who made the journey with him.

Success is never a solo journey. All significant goals in life and work are inevitably achieved with the help of other people.? I know all the meaningful goals I’ve accomplished in my life wouldn’t have happened without the support of others - especially my wife, children and mentors.

Who are the people you have, or need to have, in your corner to support you to achieve your goals?

?

?