Don't Let These Things Stop You From Achieving Your Goals

A recent question on twitter about “What stops you from achieving your goals?” was an excellent opportunity to get some data on this and to show you something crucial:

You are not alone

Other overcome it

You can too

If you only take one thing away from this article, this is it. You are not alone. Other people have the same problems as you. And, there are enough other humans who have overcome them and share their solutions.

Now, you can overcome them too.

With that said, now let’s dive into the results and how you can deal with those. We want you to achieve your goals.

Group 1: Lack Of Something

A typical pattern was the words “lack of,” which indicates that something is missing to achieve the goal.

The top 3 things that are missing are:

1. Time
2. Resources
3. Money

Sadly, their responses don’t go into details, but that is understandable.

Time Is Not The Problem, Prioritization Is

Sometimes it feels like there are not enough hours in a day. Some even wish for 48 hours days.

But, you know what?

That will not help. Because the real problem behind this is a lack of prioritization.

We all have 24 hours a day. What you put into those is the crucial thing.

If you try to balance a dozen things, you will get nowhere and complain about not having enough time. The solution to this is to prioritize and focus on the essential things to you and for reaching your goals.

Start by reading our free article about priorisation.

Resources

Lack of resources ranged from missing or not working computers to unstable electricity and other environment-related problems.

Changing your environment can be challenging, especially in combination with a lack of money. However, it is not impossible.

Find someone in your area you can combine forces with. Share resources.

Money

That is tough to answer without having context. Think about why money is stopping you from reaching your goal?

Is it really money?

Or is there something else?

Group 2: Other Reasons

Everything that did not indicate a lack of something. With the usual suspects like procrastination and fear.

Top 5 Show Stopper:

1. Environment
2. Me
3. Procrastination
4. Fear
5. Self-Doubt

Environment

The environment group contains anything from job, school, negative people, family, or family members to unstable electricity. Essentially, everything in your environment that holds you back.

Sometimes, the reason itself holds you back, but other times it can be a symptom of one of the other issues.

For example, your family could actively be holding you back by sabotaging you and your goals. Or they hold you back just because you have to take care of things and have family time. Btw that is “lack of time” in disguise.

If you think your environment is holding you back, try to determine if the people are actually sabotaging you - consciously or subconsciously. Or if it is one of the other reasons in disguise.

Now you can start fixing or mitigating the underlying problem.

Me

This is a classical answer but one that will not bring you any further. It’s too ambiguous.

If yourself is holding you back, start analyzing your issue, habits, mind, and more. Mindfulness and meditation can help you uncover the underlying causes.

Also, get started with our short read series Unlock Your Mind to find and fix self-sabotaging behavior.

Procrastination

Procrastination is not your problem that you can’t achieve your goals. Procrastination is a symptom and not a cause. Something else is causing you to procrastinate. Things like No. 4 Fear and No. 5 Self-Doubt are causes.

We covered that before, so start with this article about overcoming procrastination.

Fear

Fear is an essential part of humanity. It helps us to survive for ages.

However, some aspects in modern life don’t justify that fear, be it fear of failure, fear of success, fear of looking like an idiot, or any other.

Many of these fears circle around the fear of getting banned by your community.

When we lived in the wild, ages back, losing our group’s support doomed our death. The world wasn’t friendly, no supermarkets, enough predators, or other dangers to end your life.

So we better stick with the group. And best is not to do anything stupid.

But that does not apply for many of us today. Death is not awaiting us because we received a bad review, or someone didn’t like our article or whatever.

You have to train your brain to ignore those fears because they are not vital. Nothing life-threatening will happen.

Mindfulness and meditation can help you with that. It loosens the grip of fear and gives you space to think and act. So, you can reach your goals.

Start with our books Mindful Living or Simplify Your Life with Mindfulness - they are on free promo.

Self-Doubt

Another problem that is a disguised symptom and not the cause. As with procrastination, fix the underlying causes, and you fixed the self-doubt issue.

Major causes are:

• Lack of direction
• Lack of reason
• Fear(s)
• Lack of confidence

If you don’t know where you are heading to and why, you will doubt your decisions, way, etc.

Same if fear is taking over, you’ll doubt anything till you paralyze and do nothing.

Followed by a lack of confidence. When you don’t believe in yourself, in your own skills, mindset - the whole you, you essentially put an iron ball on your ankles.

Build up your confidence, find your reasons, set direction, and conquer your goals.

Conclusion

Sometimes external forces are stopping you from achieving your goals. But many times, it is your mind, your mindset.

Fears, self-confidence, procrastination, self-doubt, and the others are manifestations of an untrained mind. It’s like a little puppy; if you let it go, your life becomes a mess.

The worst thing you can do is to give in often. It primes your mind for giving up and not accomplishing your goals. Imagine you praise your puppy all the time after it shit on your bed. Do you think you’ll end up with a well-behaving dog?

Mindfulness and meditation are two great tools to regain control of your mind. Silence that bullshit and start achieving your goals.

Although they are not the only tools. You can find more help on our goal achieving hub.

Pick one and get started today.