Why you aren’t reaching your goals…

Below you will find things you need in order to succeed at reaching your goals. Whether your goal is to lose weight, or eat healthier, or make more money, etc. there are certain things you should have in place to be most successful.

Support From Others

As humans, we are actually built for interaction with others and to live in community. But by looking around today, one might not think that. With the internet and social media, we interact less and less with one another and often feel lonely, even if we have hundreds of ‘friends’ online. Being in a tight-knight community of like-minded people is of utmost importance if you want to achieve any goals you have in mind for your self.

Lack of Accountability

This ties right into the first thing, support, but can be a bit different. Accountability drives you to push harder than support does. Support may be the friend you go vent to when things aren’t going your way, but they might not be holding you accountable for anything. When you are properly held accountable, you have someone there helping keep track of what you have accomplished (or not). They can help give you an outside perspective to see if you have made progress or if you’re stuck. Some people are wired with accountability from themselves, which is awesome, but many need accountability from the outside to reach their goals.

Having accountability is so important to your success. Check out this test to see what your tendencies are. If you’re an obliger type like me, you need ample outside support and accountability to get moving towards your goals.

Knowledge

If you are doing all the wrong things, obviously you are not going to reach your end goal. Sometimes you need the help of an expert to see what you are doing wrong and what can be changed to help you reach success. This can come in the form of online articles or courses, a coach or expert who personally helps you, a book you read or podcast you listen to, or even a traditional class. Learning is a key aspect of your journey that cannot be overlooked. We have to learn to be able to change. For example, if we don’t know there are toxins in our home, then we won’t even know that we need to find them. And if we don’t know what they are, we don’t know how to find them and get rid of them. Same thing could apply to a process: if you are working out or eating in a way that is making things worse instead of better, you might need help from someone outside of your situation to analyze your actions and help you alter things to achieve a better result. Learning and attainment of knowledge is a key factor in the timing of your success. Getting help from someone else in this way may help to speed things up.

Mindset

What are your current mindset and attitudes like? Are they helping or hurting you? Is your head filled with positive and encouraging thoughts toward yourself or the opposite? If you are constantly thinking negatively of yourself and what your outcome might be, this is going to strongly delay your progress. There are so many mindset issues that we can commonly face, and not even realize. Once the negative self-talk in our heads is halted- and we fill ourselves with positive thoughts- we can begin to move forward toward our goal.

If you suspect you struggle with having a positive mindset toward changing your habits, read this article here about mindset mistakes and how to move to a growth mindset.

Fear

Fear is defined as an unpleasant emotion. That’s all it is- an emotion. But we often let this emotion take over and keep us from creating any action. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, and fear of what others think of us are very common. But if we let these fears stop us in our tracks and paralyze us, we may never reach our goals. Success is not dependent on ignoring the fear, or completely overcoming it, but acknowledging it and not letting it take over. We can still take action toward a goal while being afraid. It may be unpleasant, but it is possible with help and support from others. If you have strong faith, you know that there are forces at work that want to stop you and let you fail, but there are even stronger forces working for you that want you to succeed. Tell me what you think about this in the comments. Do you have a fear that you are letting hold you back from success?

Comfort Zone

When is the last time you left your comfort zone? Many times we get so comfortable where we are, even if it is not ideal, that we are okay with not taking action. This ties directly in with fear. If we are scared to leave our comfort zone, we will not be experiencing much growth- if any. Growth and progress can be uncomfortable. But to me, being exactly where I am and not growing at all is much scarier than taking action and leaping into the unknown. It’s not about being perfect, but being brave enough to create change and make progress.

Complication & Overwhelm

The last thing I want to touch on is simply not having a great goal lined up. If we are making things way too complicated, we probably will get overwhelmed and just find ourselves stuck. Creating great goals in the first place is the step we need to have success. If the goal is too vague, or too complex, we will feel too stressed to create movement toward that goal. Goals should be simple and clear. SMART goals is a great place to start. Your goal should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed. One example would be the goal to lose weight. First off, this is probably too vague. How much weight? Secondly, how can you lose that weight? A goal directly in your control would be better, such as to eat a certain number of calories per day, or a certain number of servings of vegetables per week. Make it attainable and easily measured. If you’re not sure you can check off whether you achieved that goal, it isn’t clear enough. Another example would be to work out more. This again is too vague- it needs to be specific. What kind of work out should you do? How often? And don’t set yourself an unreachable goal such as run a marathon in two weeks, when you haven’t worked out in over three years. That’s just setting yourself up for failure. Set a reasonable goal that is timely, such as I will do pilates at the gym for thirty minutes four times per week. That is easy to see whether you have accomplished it or not.

If you need help with goal setting, check out this post here with more details about SMART goals and how to set them.

Part of my job as a health coach is to help you set achievable goals and then to give you the guidance and accountability needed to reach them. I would love to learn about what you are having trouble with and how I could help you. Feel free to send me an email and tell me about what you are trying to achieve with your health. Thanks for reading!