7 Reasons Why You Fail to Accomplish Your Goals

Photo by Jan Antonin Kolar on Unsplash

Have you ever set a goal, but you couldn’t ever reach it? Have you ever given up on your goals? Many people fail to accomplish their goals. It’s actually common for people to give up on goals, unfortunately. 

But it doesn’t need to be.

Once you learn the common mistakes people make when working towards a goal, then you will be able to avoid making them too.

You’ll be able to recognize the mistakes you may be making right now… And you’ll be able to change them!

Awareness is the first step to making positive change.

This article will help you become aware of the mistakes you may be making or have made in the past.

1. No accountability for your goals

Having accountability is critical to accomplishing a goal. Telling a good friend, family member, colleague, etc., about your goals can be an effective way to hold you accountable for your goals. Having someone else know what you want to do can help you reach your goals. You want to be true to your word and show that you can do what you set your mind to do. 

This is especially true if the person you tell has the same or similar goals as you. Working with someone else to accomplish mutual goals is highly effective when both of you are committed. Problems can occur when one person gets lazy, skips working toward the goal, makes excuses, complains about the work, etc. 

This can drag the other person down. It can have such a strong downward pull that it causes both people to give up on their goals. 

So, having an accountability partner can be detrimental if both of you aren’t all in.

You could also be your own accountability partner. Essentially, you hold yourself accountable for your goals. You don’t tell anyone else about them using this strategy. This strategy helps you build self-discipline. You only have yourself to rely on, so no one else is going to help you reach your goals. You have to do it yourself.  This can make it easier to work towards them since you won’t have people asking you about them every time they see you.

Being your own accountability partner is a great strategy if you like privacy and have self-discipline. 

If you have no accountability, then it will be impossible to reach your goals. You’ll only do the work when you feel like it, which is like relying on the stars and moon to align. Having no accountability makes it easy to slack off on a goal, which leads to you eventually giving up on it.

2. Distractions overwhelm you

In this digital world, distractions are everywhere. It’s easier than ever to find quick hits of pleasure. Entertainment is available 24/7.  

You only need to pick up your phone to get lost in hours of mind-numbing content. Most social media apps are designed with an endless-scroll feature. This feeds you more and more content similar to the content you’ve viewed or liked in the past. The endless scroll sucks your attention further and further into the app. And so what starts out as a few minutes on the app ends up as multiple hours scrolling through post after post.

Smartphone addiction is a huge problem that many people face. And app creators are feeding into it. This also applies to other forms of entertainment such as TV shows, movies, video games, and so on.

To accomplish your goals, you have to eliminate your distractions while you work. Set aside time specifically where you’ll be working towards your goals. Get rid of anything that may distract you, if possible.

Putting your phone in a drawer or in a different room is an example of how you can eliminate your distractions. If you need to use your phone or technological devices while you’re working towards your goals, there are things you can do to help keep you focused.

You can turn your devices onto the “do not disturb” feature. This will block you from receiving any notifications. There are apps and website extensions that allow you to block certain apps and websites. You won’t be able to access them for a specified time of your choosing. So, you could block all social media apps while you work.

3. There is no urgency towards your goals

Urgency is crucial for accomplishing goals. You do not want to waste your time. You want to get to your goals as efficiently as possible.

Notice that I did not say that you want to reach them as quickly as possible. If you try to reach your goals as quickly as possible, you’ll crash and burn. You’ll take shortcuts that end up doing you more harm than good. Or you may overwork yourself, leading you to burn out. 

This burnout is a common reason why people quit on their goals. They go too hard too quickly. They aren’t in it for the long haul.

That being said, you want to have a sense of urgency in your journey. You don’t want it to take longer than it needs to… That prolongs your suffering. And it pushes your next goals further off.

Efficiency is key. Being efficient in your progress towards your goals lets you know that you’re doing the right things. This motivates you to continue going.

4. No patience

This may seem contradictory to the last section, but it isn’t. You need to be patient. Things won’t always go your way. You will make mistakes along the way. Some things you do may not actually benefit your progress. 

These things are going to happen.

You have to realize that while you’re working towards your goals, you’re also learning.

Sometimes things just take time to start working. You may switch things up or give up right before you start making progress! 

So, relax. 

Be comfortable with things taking time to work.

That being said, you still want to have a sense of urgency. You want to have aggressive patience. This means to be patient, but only to a certain point. If you’re not making progress after a month or two, it’s time to re-think what you’re doing. 

Do some research online to figure out how long most people take when working towards your particular goal. You’ll most likely be able to find this information if it’s a goal many people have worked towards. You may make slightly faster or slower progress generally than what most people do. But it’s a great baseline to keep in mind.

Make slight changes to how you’re working towards your goals when you know that what you’re doing isn’t working. Or make them when you know there’s a more efficient way to work towards your goals.

Don’t waste months doing the same thing when it clearly isn’t helping you. 

5. You fear making mistakes

Accept that the journey isn’t going to be perfect. It will not go exactly according to plan. No one’s perfect.

Mistakes will happen. It’s inevitable. 

Many people fail to accept this fact. And they pay the price for it. 

They try to do everything right. But things inevitably don’t go to plan. They don’t make as much progress as they thought. The things they thought were the right things to do were actually wrong. And so on.

And so these people get frustrated and switch things up too fast. They go too hard and burn out. Or they give up on their goals.

But you can avoid this trap by simply recognizing that you will make mistakes. 

Accept that you don’t know everything yet. You’re a learner, not an expert. 

Experience is a powerful teacher if you are open to learning.

Mistakes provide the most powerful lessons. This is because they negatively affect you. They show you where you went wrong. And they make you realize that you need to try something different.

6. You get stuck in planning purgatory

Many people get lost in plan-making. They want to have every step mapped out. They want every minute detail planned out. 

The problem is that planning can become a form of procrastination. 

It prevents you from doing what you really need to do. 

Taking action. 

You can plan your journey as much as you want. But it isn’t getting you towards your goals.

Only action will take you towards them.

Actions are the things that give you progress. 

Having a rough plan for what you need to do is a good idea. But don’t get caught up in it. The plan should merely be a guideline for what you’re going to do. 

A better mindset toward planning is the “I’ll figure it out as I go along” mindset.

This mindset makes you adaptable. It’s you recognizing that you don’t know everything you need to know yet about the journey. You know that you’ll make mistakes or that things may not work.

And you’re ok with that. 

Your journey rarely goes exactly as you planned. So why waste your time planning everything out?

7. You can’t picture yourself reaching your goals

Visualizing yourself at your goals helps make the goal more “real” in your mind. Seeing yourself at your goals makes them feel more realistic for you to accomplish. Especially if it’s a big goal. This also motivates you because, in the end, the goals are what you want to get out of the journey working towards it.

Think about how you’ll feel once you accomplish your goals. You’ll likely feel confident, proud, happy, motivated, and so on.

Keep that in mind as you’re working towards your goals. These feelings will help keep you motivated, especially when the journey gets tough.

Wrapping up

Now that you know the mistakes most people fall into, you’ll be able to avoid making them yourself. And you’ll be able to reduce the impact of these mistakes if you realize that you’re making them. 

Awareness is necessary to make a change. If you aren’t aware of where you’re tripping up, then you won’t be able to make a change to get back onto the right path.

Mistakes are inevitable. But you can minimize their effect simply by being aware of them.