Why most people never achieve their goals

Yup ... I love deadlines! I love that feeling of pressure.

Also to have those goals right in front of you.

Out of sight, out of mind. Put those goals where you cannot miss
them. Seeing them daily reminds you of taking action towards those goals.

yes, deadlines are vital.

Be clear about how important meeting the deadline is. Be honest about how vital this project is and what is at stake for the project if it is not completed on time. That will help you stay focused.

I agree - it is too easy to get lost in the theory and keep researching and reading instead of putting down the book and starting to actually DO.

I gave up alcohol 167 days ago and started walking every day for at least half an hour and it is changing my life, every morning and every night.

Having a clear head and feeling fitter a such a head start on where I was this time last year.

Most people never achieve their goals because they are too scared to set them and let anything come along and distract them.

Good Luck with your journey.

Yes, i agree with the concept of Deadlines... i think deadlines will help you push yourself, to put in that little effort to achieve your goal...

i should say this.. deadlines are better than targets!

Just to provide an alternative view, here is a blog post I made about the subject ...

http://www.whitedovebooks.co.uk/blog...-on-your-goals

Will

Absolutely right. A goal is nothing without a deadline.

Another achievement killer is not understanding the difference between ambition and goal.

Both are essential but one is a emotional motivator and the other is a tactical tool.

I like how I understand this a million times more than I ever did in school, when the phenomenon was most present with home work every night that I would just blow off.

I'm gonna go against the status quo on this one!

To be honest, deadlines don't really help people achieve their goals... especially self imposed deadlines. The reason why?

It's all about accountability. A person can set a goal and work towards getting there, but if they fail to meet the deadline, what happens? A self accountable goal simply gets reset to another date.

Subconsciously the person knows this and fails to achieve their goal in time and this actually has a negative effect of discouragement.

To succeed at achieving something momentum is the most powerful thing you can get on your side, not deadlines!

It's all about HOW you set your goals, how you "chunk" them down into bite sized achievable pieces, and then the manner in which you CHALLENGE yourself in small increments to start knocking the challenges out.

This is actually the way Olympian medalists set their goals. The problem with a lot of goal setters today is that they don't know how to scale their goal down into these individual challenges.

Rather, they choose a goal, choose a time, and then get after it. That's recipe to burn out and discouragement.

Rather, choose a goal, break it down into individual components, and then break down those individual components further until you've got small pieces you can accomplish one at a time in a week or two worth of time. If it takes you longer than a week or two to complete a challenge it hasn't been broken down small enough.

Then CHALLENGE yourself to achieve that finish line and get someone to hold you accountable. If you don't meet your challenge on time, don't become discouraged, just reassess your current abilities and then realign your goal until your abilities improve.

Olympians don't try to win the GOLD medal when training... they try to beat their current BEST. So knowing how good you perform is paramount, and usually the first times around as you set and go after these challenges, you'll see if you need to make them more difficult or easier.

Then once you figure out your abilities, start knocking off challenges (which all lead towards a primary goal), you'll build a ton of momentum that will carry you more fervently towards that main objective and your abilities will constantly improve so that your challenges can get more CHALLENGING

Conventional goal setting wisdom simply doesn't work because it's a lot of rehashed old timey advice. Start working on your own systems towards setting and achieving goals that doesn't add PRESSURE (that's just another form of stress) but rather build MOMENTUM (each small success will lead you more excitedly towards the next!).

Hope this helps everyone,

Chris

great shares....

I personally prefer to set deadlines for specific actions that I expect will have me rech my goals. Actions are controllable. However, goals sometimes are a little more difficult to pin a specific date to.

I think most people never achieve their goals simply because they lack interest and focus on what they're doing.

It's human nature to let a task fill the time allotted to it, so no deadline = doesn't get finished! I'm best at finishing a project under the pressure of a deadline.

I never thought about putting a deadline on a goal......that is a great idea! Thank you!

yes i have a due date to my work but when it comes to work i need to wake up as much as earlier so i can work much..specially when the work is contract and you wil got a big amount on money to this i will really work earlier for a big money..haha

great! if you set a deadline to your goal, you will be obliged to do all that you can to meet it. You can be more focused in whatever your goal is.

I agree deadlines are essential - but also necessary is the real motivation - so why do you want this goal? Not just for the goal itself but what else will it give you?
How will you feel if you don't go for the goal?
If we aren't clear on WHY we want to achieve the goal (aside from the goal itself, e.g. if the goal is to make $100 a month, what will this make you feel, what are the emotions associated with it?) it is much more likely we will achieve it.

being lazy.....or shall we say no ambitions in life...

I just removed all my deadlines and replaced them with ASAP! Now I get things done much faster. Dates were killing me. Removing them all was the best thing I did but you have to WANT the goal.

One must do their work Sincerely...and goals are acheived easily !!!

Interesting theory to add a due date to everything. It can help you accomplish a goal, but make sure if you miss you're deadline you don't let that set you back. Know that sometimes even well intentioned due dates can be moved around and life can just get in your way, and that's okay. Eventually, you'll get tired of it reoccurring on your calendar and get it done.

I really couldn't agree more. Working under the pressure of a deadline gives the impression that if you do not accomplish your goal, you fail. At least that is how I feel, and I've noticed a difference between the goals that I've set deadlines for and the ones that I put on my goal list without a deadline... those goals have yet to be achieved.

Even in Think and Grow Rich, Napolean Hill talks about giving it a deadline. This is very important for the goal to manifest.

You would think it would great but in reality it doesn't seem to work very well at all with the great majority of the people I surveyed saying they hate setting goals and coming up with dates and I had one guy say the only time he used his fancy goal setting reminder service was to move the dates away...again.

I know that setting dates is as old as the hills but the reality is that many people do not reach them and so abandon them as a failure. The goal makes them feel bad, the spiral into "nothing ever works for me" and when the black box is examined it's the dates that killed the goal. "Keep the goal, lose the dates, replace with ASAP" I suggest and things start moving again, usually faster than before.

Just saying that for some, dates are killers and daily reminders of failure. Dates are fake and we know it when setting them. Unless the date is essential (like buying Christmas presents before new years eve or paying the electricity bill before they switch off your power) it has been proven many times over that dates can be killers unless it's essential for real, not "fake" essential. Dates feel good the day you set them but after that they are a thorn in the side of many well intentioned people.

Just saying...my experience and those of the people I interviewed on this is different to what all the books seem to be telling us. It's ok to just have an aim and to move toward that aim daily. Dates must be essential for them to have any power of good.

I used to think the same as everyone. I was thrilled to even be believing that big goals are actually possible so I just did what they told me to do. But then my life did a 180 and now I only live for today and "think" about tomorrow but my main and most urgent pressing need is to have a great day and staring a failure date puts kerosene into my cake mix.

If I remove the date then I automatically become a success any time I do anything to achieve your aim (goals without dates are aims - I guess). Plus when you set your goal to be achieved ASAP you allow immersion to exist. Ask Tony Robbins what he thinks about immersion. It's more powerful than any pseudo-pressurised date could ever be.

I realise this is a very controversial method but everyone I share it with personally feels instant relief. I tell them to go and remove all dates right now but while they have a pen in their hands to make sure to write (in BIG LETTERS) ASAP! It's working. I know it's new...but it's working and I just wanted to put it out there for consideration. I too have felt the surge from placing a date but that comes more from the relief that you seem to be taking your life serious than it does from any practical advantage.

Sometimes the strategy goes beyond just setting a deadline. It's important that at the start a realistic timeline is set AND reviewed often. No point setting a realistic deadline, then find that it has to be reviewed but fail to do so.

For internet marketers and other small business owners, the challenge is finding enough slots every day to achieve specific goals. Delegating and Outsourcing are enormously helpful whether working with full time staff or a virtual team.

Your Small Business Coach

I don't have a due date for my goals,it changes from time to time.

I don't set any due dates for my goals since I am doing the online business just as a part time job. However, it is really good to have due dates for all your goals since you can use it as a motivation and as critics and can help you to improve for the future.

i tottaly agree i pesonnaly set my deadlines super hard to complete than you can reach your goal so much faster i would say try always to aim that much higher . but this only worked for my strenght training (dont do this in the learning phase because you never now what kind of information you gonna find it can be uselles and than you can work as hard as hell but without the right info you wont get any where

It would not be wise to work without deadlines, but how do you achieve the tasks? I believe it depends on the level of effort and how involving the task is. You need to balance all the things involved in a particular task. There are repetitive tasks, like article writing on a daily basis, have a deadline on that. If you are learning something new, will you still set a deadline on it? Self drive, and working towards continuously improving are very important in achieving your goals.

Actually, I have quite different ideas about why people don't achieve their goals. It'smore to do with imagining as something that is outside your current reality and relatlng to them as such instead of thinking about them as something you have already achieved. For a better explanation of this, read here:

How To Achieve Goals In Three Steps

Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Cheers

Linda

Setting a date is certainly important but in my opinion, the root failure (and very much related to the open-ended timeline) is there is very little action toward the goal. I believe virtually anything can be achieved if a reasonable plan is created that leads step-by-step to the goal. The failure most often seems to come from a breakdown between concept and execution.

I think that the biggest reason people never achieve their goals is because they come up with all kinds of excuses why they should not take action today. This creates a negative momentum that is difficult to break.

The easiest way to break this cycle is to drop the excuses and take immediately action.

I also think that a deadline is important. It helps you to stay focused and push yourself to take action.

Not setting deadlines and lack of focus is why majority of people fail at achieving their goals.

There are many reasons for failures its one of them and definitely very important....

What happens if dealines are not met - Do you give up and move onto something else? Surely the importance of achieving the objective is more important than the deadline. As long as the objective is at the forefront then it will be achieved no matter how long it takes.
Hope this helps
John.

Thank you for the encouraging reminder!

Why most people never achieve their goals.....yeah the setting deadlines is a good one to not achieving ones goals.

I think more importantly, the true factor in achieving ones goals....is to take action!

If you take a poll of people in the warrior forum who are still struggling to make money online.....the most popular answer will be....NOT taking action.

Yes they learn all these cool secrets tips and go to seminars and buy tapes and books and get all excited about starting their empire....but then life gets in the way...and they fail to take action. Action is the only way to make your dreams come true. While setting goals is important....without action...nothing will happen.

For me I think people don't achieve their goals (in internet marketing) because they don't treat it like a real business.

They treat it like a hobby. Once you act like the CEO of your business then that's when your goals start getting accomplished.

I never make deadlines for my goals, thats why i didnt achieve my goals. from now i will set due dates to my goals. Hope it will improve my work.

Research has consitenly shown that about 95% of people do not have goals. I think that is the beginning point.

When we talk about the 5% who have written goals, then deadlines are crucial. If you set the right goals and review then daily, the battle is half way won.

Dates are the gas to any goal. Without the deadline, the goal is not going to be achieved. Thanks for the reminder.

I used to have deadlines, but did away with them recently.

Here's a good example:

I'm currently about to launch a complete health and fitness blog aimed at beginners, but also for all fitness levels (based on my own experiences and trials/errors over the past twenty years).

I have the actual site all set up, I just need to beef it up with some articles. I set a daily deadline to write at least five articles/day before I go on vacation this weekend. A whole week went by before I realised that I was putting too much pressure on myself to write quality content.

So instead, what I did was jot down some ideas for stories/tips of what I could write later on...guess what? I came up with lots of article ideas. Now I feel like I can write as much as I can.

Small goals > deadlines

I don't even necessarily think it's a deadline (for one, there are too many variables even for the most disciplined entrepreneur to meet). I think it's simply giving up because they don't believe they can and are not ambitious enough. I believe ambitious trumps pure talent. Persist, persist, persist, and one can achieve magnificent achievements that even the most talent, but lazy, person may not achieve. Or at least that is what I keep telling myself.

Experimentation with my time and my capacity has been my hobby. I really love setting deadlines for myself and I find it very fulfilling every time I break my records. I like it when I don't expect I could finish something out of the tasks that I have to do. Now, I know that I'm much of a better person that yesterday or the other.

I agree, deadlines are very important in achieving your goals.

Honestly speaking, the concept of putting a deadline to all plan is important tips to be noted

People quit too fast thats why!

You are right slingingshot15. We have short term goal, medium-term goal and long term goals. The similarities of these goals is that they are all time-bounded. They are specified on when they should be met. A properly constructed goals will have to have in them a specified span of time on when it is supposed to be accomplished. In that way, proper allocation or resources and step-by-step process is outlined in order to achieve them.

Taking consistent action. It's not about taking a one time massive action, but consistent. Muscles are built when we consistently visit the gym. Success is the same.

hahahaha you are very very right my friend