5 Mistakes Keeping You From Achieving Your Goals in 2021
So, it is already almost February, and you already fell off the wagon, or maybe you didn’t even set any goals this year because you know yourself.
You set goals every year, like clockwork, and like clockwork, you never achieve them.
Maybe, you started to identify as lazy.
Well, I’m here to tell you, you are not lazy.
You’re doing it wrong.
Everyone tells us that we should set goals for ourselves, especially at the start of a new year. Yet, no one explains how to actually achieve them.
I’ve been there, just like you, setting goals on top of goals and never making much progress on any of them.
But once I understood why I wasn’t making progress, I changed the way I set goals, which resulted in me achieving goals regularly.
If you prefer to listen to the audio version of this blog, you can check out my podcast: Hello, Next Level Epi: How to Set Intentions for 2021!
So, what’s keeping you from your goals?
5 Reasons You Don’t Achieve Your Goals:
1. You Set Goals to Set Goals
Like clockwork, every year on January 1st, you sit down and make a list of all the things you want to achieve because, well, that’s what you’re supposed to do.
You write down things like; be healthier, go to the gym, learn french, get a promotion, without considering why and IF you actually want to achieve any of those goals.
This leads me to my next reason why you aren’t achieving your goals.
2. You Don’t Take Time to Reflect
You decided to forget about last year and look forward to the new year. Letting go of the past and choosing to make changes is a good thing, but before you toss 2020 out the window, take time to reflect on it.
This is especially important if you are experiencing a pattern of setting goals and then never checking them off your list. Reflecting on the previous year allows you to assess what worked and what did not.
Reflecting on the year prior can help you determine what changes you want to make and what you want to keep.
Once I started setting aside time to learn from the year. I began seeing where I went wrong, which allowed me to make improvements.
Awareness is the key here.
Here are some reflections to get you started:
What goals and intentions did you set last year? Why did you set them?
Which goals and intentions did you achieve? What contributed to you achieving them?
Which goals and intentions did you not achieve? Why?
What do you want to keep from last year?
What do you want to let go of?
What are you most proud of?
Did you set intentional goals last year?
3. You Don’t Consider Your Values
It took me a while to realize the reason I was struggling to achieve my goals. It wasn’t because I was lazy. I was setting goals based on what looked good on paper or what I thought other people would like.
I did not take the time to do the inner work and consider my values.
Every goal you set for yourself should be intentional; it should align with your values and the life you are trying to create for yourself.
Determining whether a goal is actually in alignment with you is something that takes some self-questioning.
Honestly, sometimes I did not even realize a goal was out of alignment with me and the life I was trying to create until the end of the year. It was still on my list, then in the reflection process, I realized why I never achieved the goal.
As time goes on and you begin to know yourself better, this process will get easier.
4. Your Goals are Too Ambitious
Now, I don’t want to say that any goal is too big for you to accomplish because I do not believe that. But what I will say is that your goal might be too big for the time constraint you put on yourself.
5. You Don’t Have a Game Plan
You set yourself a big goal of going to the gym every day, 5 days a week. You are starting from a place of never working out a day in your life. You have never even set foot inside a gym or lifted a dumbbell.
That goal in itself seems difficult to swallow. But with the right frame of mind completely achievable. You need to create a game plan. Break your goal down into smaller actionable steps. For example, the first goal would be to research gyms in your area. Next, get a gym membership at that gym and so on.
Breaking your large goals into smaller steps allows you to celebrate small wins while still making progress toward your goal.
The small step of going to the gym one day and then the next will slowly form into a habit. Learning to turn your small actions into positive actions is the key to achieving your goals.
What’s your best tip for setting and achieving goals?
Until next time,
Kirstyn
I’m Kirstyn!
The voice behind the LaRee Social blog. I'm a Creative Virtual Assistant & Mindset Coach with a passion for personal development and helping other entrepreneurs break through their barriers discover their passion and make $$.
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