7 reasons why you can’t achieve your goals

Coming up with a goal is easy. We all have things we want to do or achieve someday. But then comes the tricky part: making them happen. Are you also not able to achieve your goals? It’s effortless to make excuses (“you’re so busy with work”), but it’s probably one of these 7 reasons.

Address these reasons to achieve your goals in life.

1. Your goals are unrealistic

You want to write a bestseller or run a marathon. That’s all nice and great, and there’s nothing wrong with being ambitious. But if you haven’t written a story in years and are already exhausted by a 5-kilometre run, these goals are not very realistic.

A big ambitious goal becomes realistic when you break it down into smaller manageable goals. For example, in bestselling writing, smaller goals might include joining a writing club, taking a class, creating the story, and writing 2,000 words each week.

2. Your goals are not concrete

The significant advantage of dividing your goals into smaller goals is that you immediately ensure that your goals are concrete. In this way, it becomes clear how you are going to achieve the goals.

As long as that is not clear, not much will come of it.

3. You have too many goals

You probably recognize it: suddenly you have decided that things have to be different. You have to eat healthier, exercise more, get up earlier, meditate, and so on.

Then you will become successful. But because you want to change too much at once, none of your goals will come to fruition. Prioritize one goal and build up slowly.

4. You forgot your “why”

Why do you want that promotion, lose five kilos or start your own business? You want that promotion because challenging work makes you most happy, you want to lose five kilos to have more energy and feel better about yourself, and you want to start your own business because you want to organize your life on your terms.

There will come times when you will struggle. You work long evenings to get that promotion, for example. Then it is essential not to forget your why. Do you find that difficult? Make a vision board and hang it in a place where you will see it often. That’s what you do it for.

5. You are afraid you will fail

What if you work hard and fail to achieve your goal? That would be extremely painful and disappointing. Well, you’d better save yourself that humiliation by not working on the plan at all. This way, you can make excuses and blame other people for not achieving your goal, and it wasn’t your ignorance.

The above situation is very human, and for many people – consciously or unconsciously – this is why they do not achieve their goals. But if you continued like this, you would very much regret all the aspirations and dreams that you never completed at the end of your life. Ask yourself what’s the worst that could happen. That’s okay.

6. You haven’t set a deadline for yourself

Why is a deadline so essential to achieving a goal? You then hold yourself accountable. It’s like this: suppose you want to write that bestseller. If you haven’t set a deadline for yourself, it’s okay if you’re still working on it years later. In other words: if you are busy for a week, this goal shifts to the background.

Set a specific deadline, for example, in a year, and plan how you will achieve this goal. Then you either achieve your goal or don’t, but at least it creates that pressure to work on your goal.

7. You keep procrastinating

It’s so easy to say you’re starting tomorrow. Especially now, it is very tempting to shift all your goals. Why would the future version of yourself suddenly magically have the motivation?

Think about whether you really want to achieve your goal, and if so, start now.