Change Your Mindset

10 Things That Stop You From Achieving Your Goals

Published

2 years ago

Dec 13, 2022

Lidiya K

Image Credit: Unsplash

In order to achieve our goals, we need to change our behavior, which leads to us becoming better versions of ourselves. Perhaps, we’re not quite ready for change because we haven’t developed the necessary success habits, haven’t eliminated unhealthy and unproductive activities, and have so many distractions that we hardly know what’s really important.

It’s important to remember that achieving what you want is absolutely possible. You’ll need to fall in love with consistency and start taking a step each day toward reaching your goals.

Here are 10 things that stop you from achieving your goals:

1. Perfectionism

Many people have deep desires within themselves and want to achieve certain things in life. But they are greedy and unappreciative even before they receive them, and want much more than they deserve.

Many, for instance, want not just to be offered a good job with a high salary and work hard to make money and increase the quality of their life, but they want to be rich, and they want it now.

That’s a wrong approach.

Because, first you need to be grateful for what you already have (and no matter how little that is, believe me, others have much less and still find the will to thank for it).

Only then will you feel some abundance and will realize that you have the power to turn it into something more? And you’ll feel the need to work for that, to give something in return and to then enjoy the fruits of your labor.

That’s how you can eliminate perfectionism from your life and still achieve what you want.

2. Failure

We have a wrong perception of what failure is these days. Most people fear failure and it makes them not even try because of the chance of not succeeding. Because it can be easy to fail in many things, people become paralyzed with the fear of failure, and they end up never seeing their dreams come true.

The truth is, failure is a precious gift. It’s an inevitable step on your way to success, and a step you’ll likely need to take more than once.

Failure is proof that you’re trying, you’re doing something to get what you want, and you’re not giving up. Failure gives you the lessons and experiences you’ll need to become stronger, have more willpower, and be more focused.

If you listen to failure, it’ll guide you in the right path because failure shows you what exactly not to do next time because it didn’t work out this time. If you keep trying, eventually you’ll get there.

There’s no better example than Thomas Edison – his whole life is proof of the power of failure and how you can work with it for optimum success.

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas Edison

3. Focusing on the end result

I know you’re eager to reach your goals, and it can make anyone impatient because we want it right away. We don’t want to wait and put in the work.

It’s important to remember that things don’t work that way. The only thing to do is fall in love with the process and focus less on the end result. When you focus on doing what needs to be done day in and day out, you’ll get the end result you wanted.

4. Taking big steps

There’s a certain path you’ll need to walk before you get there. And its purpose is to make you strong enough to handle the success that’s waiting for you.

That path consists of many steps. Small ones – because the big ones make us worry, fear and not even try.

So divide your goals into small steps, then into even smaller ones, until you have a list of simple tasks to do each day. And make them so easy and quick that it will be impossible to say no.

5. Excuses

You may often hear yourself say some of the following:

I’m not ready;
It’s not the right time;
I’m not good enough;
I’m too old/young;
I don’t have enough money/time/experience;
Most people don’t succeed anyway, neither will I;
Maybe I’m not meant to do it;
It’s too hard;
It will take too long;
I may do it wrong;
People will laugh at me.

When that happens, stop and reflect on why you’re saying this.

Realize that your mind is tricky and prefers to stay in its comfort zone, doing the same old activities and tasks on autopilot, and not try anything new. That’s why it’s making up all these excuses, which can often sound quite convincing.

Your job is to eliminate them, to even exaggerate them, and see how ridiculous they sound. Because if you choose the other option – if you believe them – you’ll never do anything different with your life and will never see the things you desire come true.

6. Procrastination

It’s another thing that stops us from taking action toward our goals. So it’s another thing we need to give up.

Keep in mind one thing: now is the best time to do what you want, any other time is later than now.

The present moment is where you create your future and the only time you can be productive and work on what you believe in.

The only cure for procrastination is to start doing something immediately, without thinking and giving your mind time to come up with excuses. Without doubting your abilities and fearing failure.
Just do a little something today that will help you move forward and get closer to your dreams.

7. Expectations

Stop expecting so much. It’s a destructive behavior that brings deep disappointment in your life.

You expect things to turn out in a certain way, you expect people to behave as you imagine them to, and whenever that doesn’t work out, you feel upset and lose any motivation to take action.

Ditch these fantasies you live in, eliminate the scenarios you play in your head of how things should be, and accept them as they are.

And meanwhile, keep doing what you know is right.

8. Distractions

There will be people who will doubt you and make you lose hope if you listen to them. There will also be many temptations on your way to success. Many of these temptations are likely to be pleasant, but time-wasting activities.

You may often feel that life is unfair because others have so much time and can eat or buy whatever they want and you can’t. But that’s not true.

It’s just that you’ve chosen to work on your goals and strive for a better life, while others prefer the easier way of living – indulging in activities that only bring temporary happiness.

9. Lack of consistency

Lack of consistency is a big one, because with whatever you do, you won’t see any progress if you don’t do it each day.

Consistency is a trait of successful people, and it becomes a habit, like everything else. But without it, you won’t get far. It’s better to do something for 15-30 minutes every single day than to only do something once a week for hours.

Stay consistent and develop that habit.

10. Hanging out with the wrong crowd

Someone once told me that if they hung out with the people I associate myself with, they’d be able to tell me if I’d succeed. As the years have gone by, this is absolutely true.

Think about the people you’re around on a daily basis. Are they just cruising by? Are they drinkers? Are they family people? It’s important to hang out with people that’ll help elevate you. It’s also equally important that you help elevate them.

In conclusion, I’ll tell you this about achieving your goals:

You don’t get what you want, or what you think you deserve.

Instead, you get exactly what you work for, what you focus on , what you take action upon every single day.

Ready To Achieve Your Goals? Read more blogs about reaching your goals and success on Addicted 2 Success

14 Comments