You’ve been working your butt off, but it feels like no matter how much you work, you just can’t seem to reach your goals. You’re tired of going to bed each night without that feeling of satisfaction that you get when you’ve accomplished one of your goals.
You’re not alone. One of the most frustrating parts of being an ambitious person like you are is not achieving the goals that you feel like you should be achieving.
It can be extremely disheartening to wake up day after day with huge dreams but nothing to show for it.
If you find yourself having trouble reaching your goals, there has to be a good reason for it. It’s not that you lack motivation. It’s not that you’re lazy. There’s something else going on that you need to fix.
This is a list of the top 5 reasons that I’ve seen people have trouble with when trying to reach their goals. Hopefully at least one of these will apply to you and help you get back on track towards achieving everything that you dream of!
1. You are not turning your goals into action
Choosing what your goals are is the easy part. Deliberately choosing what you are going to do with your time, and following through with those choices is the hard part.
You are going to have to take daily action to reach your goals. It’s not enough to just decide that you want something. It’s going to take dedication to get what you want.
If you have a goal to grow your small business, but you only spend one day a week on it, then it’s going to be tough to make real progress.
If you can’t reach your goal of losing 10 pounds, then check in on what you’re doing daily to lose that weight. Are you following through with your diet? Are you skipping workouts because you just don’t feel like it?
Small steps every single day will get you where you want to go. Trust the process.
2. Your goals aren’t specific enough
Sometimes the problem with reaching your goals is simply that you haven’t made them specific enough to be able to reach.
Maybe you’re wanting to lose weight.
Maybe you’re wanting to save money.
Maybe you’re wanting to start a side hustle.
Well, those are all wonderful goals, but how will you know when you’ve reached them?
Instead of just saying “I want to lose weight” make it a more specific goal.
“I will lose 5 pounds this month by walking 1 mile a day and cutting 200 calories from my diet.”
Without having a specific goal it is very difficult to know when you’ve actually achieved your goal.
It’s like driving without a destination in mind. You just know you need to head north. You have no idea where you’re going exactly or how long it will take to get there.
Pick a specific goal and pursue it by using daily action.
3. Your mindset is stopping you from reaching your goals
This is a big one to overcome. Mindset might be the most important piece of achieving your goals.
If you don’t truly believe that you can achieve what you’ve set out to do, then any speed bump will totally stop you in your tracks.
Learn to understand that failure is just part of the process. Don’t let it get you down when it happens. Just dust yourself off and move forward.
You have big goals to achieve!
4. The daily grind is getting in the way
So maybe you already know that you should be taking daily action. You already have specific goals. But you still aren’t making any progress.
Often times people will not even realize when they’re letting life get in the way of achieving their goals.
Life gets stressful. There’s a lot to keep track of. You’ve got your family, friends, finances, health, work, and fun. Each of these has its own importance level in our lives. And each will consume our time if we let them get out of hand.
Try to do a hard reset and take a good look at where your time is being spent. Are you wasting precious hours on things that don’t really matter that much to you?
5. You just need a plan
Sometimes the solution is as simple as sitting down and formulating a plan to reach your goals.
It’s not always some elaborate thing. It’s just working backwards from your goal to where to you are today.
Take your goal and break it down into the steps that you will need to get there.
It can be a short term or long term goal. Achieving any goal will take a little bit of planning.
You can do this on a pad of paper or you can use a planner. Whatever works best for you.
Daily Planner and Goals Journal
If you are looking for a good system to use for setting your goals and turning them into action, then take a look at the daily planner and goals journal that I’ve developed.
I personally use this to help myself stay on track when reaching goals that I used to think were impossible.
Wrapping it up
The top 5 reasons that you might be having trouble reaching your goals are:
- You are not turning your goals into action
- Your goals aren’t specific enough
- Your mindset is stopping you
- The daily grind is getting in the way
- You just need a plan
We have other articles that are devoted to helping you create and achieve goals. You can check them out in our ultimate guide to goal setting or click on the goal setting category in the menu at the top of the page!
Drop a comment below if you have any questions about how you can better reach your goals.