Goals: Why They Trip Us Up (and How to Stop Kicking Ourselves)

Goals are a funny thing.

We set goals to push ourselves and inspire action – only to beat ourselves up when life gets life-y (or business gets business-y) and we don’t achieve them.

What if the problem isn’t us, but how we approach goal setting in the first place?

Here are some blind spots I’ve seen trip up both myself and my clients:


1. Basing Your Goals on Guesswork:
   There’s always going to be steps on the path that we don’t know in advance. The problem is when we decide to tackle something completely new and pretend we know the entire path to get there.
   
   When we embrace testing and make learning the goal, we can acknowledge the areas where we’ve made our best guesses and go about testing them for more information.
   
2. Mistaking People for Machines:
   How many times have you set a goal that would require you to show up consistently in terms of your time, energy, and mental focus in order to succeed? Humans generally have a difficult time with consistency.
   
   Instead, we should be kind to our future selves by setting reasonable expectations for ourselves in terms of how long something might take. Where possible, remove unnecessary steps and pressure to perform so that just showing up is good enough.
   
   
3. Stretching Yourself Too Thin:
   Focus is a superpower, but it’s a singular verb. When we try to move multiple commitments forward at the same time, we slow down the progress on everything. This is especially difficult because we’re already sharing our focus with the day-to-day tasks that make up our lives.
   
   To get more focused and less scattered, we need to first pick the singular goal or milestone we want to accomplish and then go about simplifying the other areas of our lives so that we can invest in our accomplishments.
   
   
4. Having Fuzzy Finish Lines:
   To many of us, the term SMART goals seems eyeball-rollingly obvious. But how many times have you set a goal that didn’t have a clear, measurable outcome? Maybe you want to ‘eat healthier’ or ‘book out your service’, but how will you know you’ve done this? Vague goals lead to a fuzzy sense of accomplishment (read: frustration).
   
   Instead, we should set clear milestones – even if it’s not the full goal – so we can celebrate progress, stay motivated, and know when we can move on to our next goal.
   
   
5. Not Having a Strong ‘Why’:
   The least motivating thing in the world is setting goals you think you should set. It’s easy to look at what other people we admire have accomplished, and think that we have to do the same.
   
   Understanding why you want to achieve something not only provides motivation, but also ensures that you won’t feel resistant to the work that needs to be done to make it a reality. I’ve found that having a long-term vision that I break down into smaller goals and projects to help ensure I’m on the right track.
   
   
6. Setting Goals for Things Outside Your Control:
   There will always be things that we can control, and things that we can’t. Knowing the difference will have a huge impact on your ability to actually achieve your goals. Outcomes are something we can attempt to influence, but it’s our outputs that we can actually take accountability for.
   
   Focus on influencing your thoughts, actions, and decisions. External factors are out of your control – don’t let them derail your progress.

If you’re someone who feels hesitant to set new goals for fear of failure, I hope you’ll use this list to reflect on which blindspots have been your biggest obstacle. 



Try starting small. Set a goal that feels good not just to achieve, but to actively work on. 



As long as you’re growing and learning, there’s no such thing as failure.