Every year, I set a goal to publish a certain number of blog posts I want to publish and the number of email newsletters I’ll send.
While I’m doing great with the newsletter goal, I didn’t achieve the blogging goal in 2022 and definitely won’t in 2023.
In fact, this is the first blog post I’m writing since November 2022. Sad, but true.
I’ve been coming to the blog a couple of times each month and…nothing. I also keep telling myself that I can create time to write. That hasn’t worked to motivate me to actually create the time.
But something changed when I realized that the first half of the year is almost over and I was still talking about getting back to blogging instead of actually doing it.
Something had to change. Time was carved out for blogging. And here I am.
Has this ever happened to you?
Do you have a list of business goals and no idea how to achieve them? You can…
Achieve Your Goals Faster by Avoiding These 5 Common Mistakes
Many people go through life directionless. And sometimes, it does feel like simply having goals is good enough. While goal-setting is critical, it doesn’t always lead to success, as you can see from my case.
To achieve your personal and business goals faster, they need to be part of your daily life, not just a list you tuck away, or a document you save in a file called ‘goals’.
If you’ve been struggling and want to achieve your goals faster, check to identify which of these 5 common mistakes could be holding you back.
1. Thinking of Your Goals as a Static List
It’s easy to think that goals are cast in stone once you set them or to try and set New Year’s resolutions and then see how it goes.
Unfortunately, life is not static. Things change and sometimes you have no control over the events that happen to us or within your environment.
Additionally, we are constantly evolving. So our goals need to change with us.
It’s easy to assume that you are the problem when you’re unable to work on or achieve your goals. You may tell yourself that you aren’t working hard enough, or aren’t talented or skilled enough.
But sometimes the issue is with the goal itself and it needs to be adjusted to align with what is important to you in this season of your life.
Periodic reviews will help with this so schedule time to regularly assess your goals. Create the reviews as appointments in your calendar and stick to them.
This is one of the tactics that has helped me get back to blogging. A lot is happening in the business that requires my time and energy. At the same time, my quarterly reviews keep reminding me that I’m slacking off on a key aspect of my marketing.
I didn’t want the year to end on this or a worse note. So I committed to getting back to writing this month, and it has worked.
2. Your Goals Lack a Sense of Urgency
There’s always a rush when setting goals and completing the exercise leaves you on a high note. It’s easy to settle back to ‘real life’ once this euphoria is gone.
You feel like you have plenty of time to achieve your goals when the time is right. That time never comes for many!
Giving your goals a sense of urgency contributes to their successful achievement. A sense of urgency motivates you to perform, provides focus, and promotes consistency.
Set a timeframe for completion and be clear about the negative consequences of inaction. This will create a sense of urgency and kick your goals into high gear.
Another way to create a sense of urgency is to have external support and accountability. This could be in the form of an accountability partner, coach, mentor, trainer, or mastermind group. More on that in mistake #5.
Join my quarterly Finish Strong Challenge if you’re a woman entrepreneur and would like to work on your business goals with like-minded women.
3. You Haven’t Broken Down Your Long-Term Goals
Long-term goals are great. They give you direction and help you have clarity about where you’re headed.
However, focusing only on the big-picture is not enough to keep you motivated and focused in the short term. You need to break these long-term goals into smaller chunks or short-term goals.
These shorter milestones act as quick wins that will keep you upbeat and confident along the journey to your big wins.
Let’s say you’re a coach and one of your long-term goals is to phase out one-on-one coaching and focus on producing live courses and reaching thousands of people.
Take a small piece of that goal and make that your focus. You could, for example, decide to create and launch your first online course in three months’ time. You are still working toward your big goal, but you are breaking it down into manageable chunks.
You’d also need to create sub-tasks for each of these tasks and work them into your daily and weekly schedule.
While a simple to-do list will help you stay on track, you might achieve more when you use a project management app. My favourites are Asana, Trello, and ClickUp.
I’ve used all three and settled on Clickup because it doubles as a project and business management app.
Getting reminder emails from ClickUp every day certainly helped to keep the writing goal at the top of my mind, even when I procrastinated on it!
It would have been easier to turn them off, but I chose to keep the reminders on so that the goal would not slip through the cracks. And it didn’t.
4. You Have Unrealistic Expectations
Sometimes, we set the bar too high. The overall goal is positive and attainable, but the timeframe for achieving it isn’t or the frequency of the habit is unrealistic.
It’s also easy to underestimate the time it will take to achieve the goal and complete the tasks related to it. This can undermine your confidence, cause stress, strain relationships, and cause you to give up on the overall goal.
Set SMART goals that stretch you outside your comfort zone without throwing you off the cliff. SMART is an acronym that stands for:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Time-bound
Check out the SMART goal-setting articles and resources on this blog if you need more help on this.
5. You Don’t Have Support and Accountability
Once you set your goals, you should also develop an accountability plan. This could involve:
- Working with a coach, mentor, trainer, or business partner
- Having an accountability buddy
- Creating or joining a mastermind group
- Signing up for a paid mastermind group with an experienced facilitator
Having outside support and encouragement is critical. It also comes in handy if you start to lose motivation and need someone or a group of people to help you see the situation from a different angle.
Don’t Let Your Goals Go Unaccomplished
I’ve shared how I allowed my writing goals to slide slowly until almost 7 months have passed without new articles on this blog. The first 2 mistakes in this list helped to keep these goals on the to-do list without me taking action on them.
Having support and accountability from my mastermind has helped me get back on track. It’s not easy, but the sense of relief I feel as I write this blog post is already motivating me to continue going.
Working towards your goals in isolation is difficult. If you have a small business or are a solopreneur, often you are the employee, manager, and CEO. There is nobody to hold you accountable. You are often tempted to let daily goal-oriented tasks slide.
Enlisting the help of an accountability buddy can help if finances are tight. You can keep each other focused on your goals, provide feedback, and hold each other accountable if you don’t meet the goals you’ve both agreed to.
Finally, remember that sometimes it’s the goals that need to be reworked – not you. Revise your goals, maintain a sense of urgency, break your big-picture goals down into micro-goals, set realistic expectations, and find a way to hold yourself accountable.
When you take these steps, you’ll be well on the way to becoming a consistent goal achiever!
Next Step if You Want to Achieve Your Goals Faster
Are you ready to learn a step-by-step process to set achievable and inspiring goals that will keep you motivated?
Goal setting brings power and practicality to your vision.
It takes time to master how to effectively break down your big business goals into realistic and achievable chunks is a skill that can take years to perfect.
I teach a shorter and highly effective process that will help you make your goals more powerful in the Goal Setting Masterclass.
Sign up today, set goals for success, and learn how to achieve them faster than you have done in the past!
(Image credit: Unsplash)
