What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.” -Zig Ziglar
It’s already the third quarter of 2024. The year is gradually winding down. It is an amazing opportunity to take stock of 2024 so far.
Every new year presents us with renewed hope as we look forward to achieving fresh goals or building on already existing foundations. You may want to sit with yourself and ask what exactly is stopping you from making good that promise you made yourself at the beginning of the year or at the start of this quarter…and search within for the answer(s) by being as honest as you can with yourself.
Let us consider a few critical stoppers we could/should work on
1. No discipline
Whatever the project or goal is, a lack of discipline is a huge stopper. Nothing can be achieved if we lack the discipline to apply ourselves to working towards the goal. Discipline says, “I will do this whether or not I want to because it draws me closer to my goal”.
2. A lack of consistency
Closely behind discipline is consistency. The discipline of being consistent in our actions towards our goals trumps doing mind-blowing stuff once every month, as opposed to doing whatever it is we are doing weekly or daily. The idea is to work on our goals for about thirty minutes every day, rather than waiting to do so an hour or two a month. Consistency helps us gain ground quickly…it can be likened to a plant that grows both a tap root and fibrous roots. We get established and cover more ground more easily and faster.
“A good goal is like a strenuous exercise—it makes you stretch.” -Mary Kay Ash
3. A fear of failure
Is it possible to fail at something? Certainly! So what? Another attempt after some analysis and recouping, positions you a lot better to achieve your goals. Is the thrill of accomplishing that dream of yours not more exciting than sitting pretty (or handsome ), not knowing what could have been? No one enjoys admitting to failure, but we all encounter it on our life’s journey. So why not make all we can out of the experiences we have?
4. Distraction
What may distract you may not distract me. Though there are general distractions like our mobile phones, we need to identify for ourselves the things, views, opinions, ideas, places, etc that distract us from focusing on achieving our goals. Once we identify the distraction and/or its source, we should take steps to reduce or cut it off so they no longer wield any power over us. Granted, sometimes life hands us situations that require that we be distracted a while for our own good. However, that should not become the norm, but the exception.
One way to boost our willpower and focus is to manage our distractions instead of letting them manage us -Daniel Goleman
5. Perfectionism
Think for a minute whether you are the kind that is all out for perfection. It’s easy to replace perfectionism with excellence and vice-versa. If we wait for perfect conditions to take steps towards achieving our goals, we may be rooted in one spot for a long time, gaining depth but no ground. Perfectionism is the state of being faultless and excellence is being outstanding or being the very best you can be. Can we allow ourselves to be excellent and yet give room to rectify our faults?
6. Competition
“A flower does not think of competing with the flower next to it, it just blooms.” -Zen Shin
Competition can be healthy and unhealthy, depending on one’s attitude to it. One way of using competition to your advantage is to compete against yourself. Find an area in which you did okay last quarter or last year and set higher targets for yourself in that field.
So What Next?
Rowing harder doesn’t help if the boat is headed in the wrong direction.” -Kenichi Ohmae
Instead of looking around for external stoppers, some introspection will help greatly to get us re-motivated and ready to finish the year on sound footing.
Freda Abah-Dakou
Ready to break free from what’s holding you back? Click here and let us guide you on the journey to achieving your goals.
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