The goal setting process can be tricky. As much as satisfaction and happiness one derives upon realising their goal, the entire process, and the stages can be quite demoralizing especially when one is faced with certain challenges. Let’s take a closer look at these challenges and how to overcome them.
CHALLENGE 1: Unclear objectives. The majority of us tend to set goals on the basis of what we ‘think’ we want rather than what we really want. There may have been a time when you might have set a goal for yourself and upon fulfilling it, you may not have been as satisfied as you thought you would be. It’s a common thing to happen and the reason is that you weren’t clear about what you wanted. What you should do- whenever you set a goal ask yourself “why do I want this?” dig deeper and counter question yourself. The more you uncover your desire to achieve something, the better.
CHALLENGE 2: Unrealistic expectations. Ever faced a situation in which you thought to yourself “that’ll be easy” but it ended up being everything but easy? Well the problem lies in your unrealistic and false expectations out of that task. Get this straight- you can’t achieve great things overnight. You simply cannot. You can either start with goals which are achievable or lower your expectations about the goal. Gradually set out to make bigger and greater objectives. Life will be easier that way.
CHALLENGE 3 It’s too hard. The level of difficulty of a goal can be underestimated at times. Working towards any goal will seem tough at the beginning but some goals may be tough throughout (the major cause being your unrealistic expectations). What you must do is to be persistent. Take baby steps towards your goal. Keep pushing and don’t lose the momentum. There’ll come a point at which it won’t be difficult anymore. And dare you say “I give up”.
CHALLENGE 4 Not doing the inner work. Most of us think that achieving goals is external in nature. You do certain tasks and you reach where you want to. It’s like a journey from one point to another. However, just like there are two sides of a coin, the attainment of goals also has two sides. The inner work i.e. the change in yourself and your personality also matters to a great extent in realisation of your goals. Start inculcating the qualities that are required of your goal to be achieved.
CHALLENGE 5 Sacrifice v/s Gain. It’s not surprising that in order to gain something you’re going to have to lose something and unfortunately enough, most people forget the sacrifice part and focus on what they will gain once they reach their goal. This ignorance can backfire when faced with undesirable conditions. Therefore, be mentally prepared to sacrifice and to lose something. Only two things matter in this case, first- “is the sacrifice worth it?” and second- “am I willing to do it?” Answer and decide wisely.
CHALLENGE 6 Lack of self-belief. This is one of the most common problem in goal- setting. Your low self -confidence and self -esteem is in no way helping you to achieve what you want, if it did, you would have been setting your next goal. Believe in yourself and your abilities and then take action. The more you do things that bring you closer to your goal, the more confident you’ll feel about yourself. You can also remind yourself of your previous accomplishments to motivate you.
CHALLENGE 7 Fear of failure. The fear of failure is one of the biggest reasons that disables people from moving to bigger and better things in life. You may feel that no matter how much efforts you put in, you can’t get what you want. You start procrastinating, finding ways to delay your tasks. In such cases, frustration is also bound to happen. What you need to understand is that goal attainment is a gradual and a long process. The means and methods may fail, you however aren’t a failure. It all depends on how you see it.
CHALLENGE 8 Obstacles. There may come a point where you come face to face with a hindrance or an obstacle while working on your goal. Unexpected obstacles are the most common reason behind unrealised goals. Most people do not anticipate and therefore do not prepare themselves for these obstacles and feel absolutely confused and tensed when it happens. What you should do- When you are setting your goal, think of all of the possible barriers and hindrances that you can face and then come up their solution.
CHALLENGE 9 Trying to control. Some people like to be in control of everything, every possible thing that concerns them. In doing so, they end up complicating things for themselves. While you may control things that you can you also need to accept that some things are beyond your control and the only thing that you can do in such situations is to adapt.
CHALLENGE 10 Lack of commitment. You’ve set a goal for yourself and you want to achieve it but still you’ll find yourself not being committed enough to your goal. When you aren’t loyal and constant with your goal, you’ll never make it a priority, which means that you probably won’t do things that you should be doing to attain your goal. The end result will be an unrealised goal and we don’t want that, do we?
CHALLENGE 11 Losing motivation. It’s a good thing to be optimistic about your goal and its outcomes and we all are, at least in the initial stage of the goal-setting and then gradually a downward spiral seems to drain all of our motivation and before you know it, you over optimism has now turned to zero motivation. You can either change your approach, reignite your excitement and expectation from the goal or just simple take a break.
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