Do you remember a time when you set a goal and promised yourself to do whatever it took to achieve it? What happened then? Did you do whatever it took to achieve it? Did you really achieve the goal or you gave up somewhere in the middle and ditched your promise in the forget-it-land?
It is unfortunate that every year we set great goals for ourselves but one day, one week, or one month later we stop chasing those goals for whatever “reason” or “excuse”!
What is stopping you from making progress toward achieving your goals and dreams?
If you don’t know the answer to this question, let me shed some light on what the underlying causes could be.
Lack of Self-Belief
Many goals and dreams are left unfulfilled because we are not willing to go through the necessary change. After some trial we hit the wall and do not see a way out. Soon our excitement turns into disappointment and our hope into fear and doubt. This will eventually lead to losing confidence and self-belief. “I can’t” and “it’s hard” become our mantras and before we know it we have slashed our goal and ditched it. We then jump to another branch, set another goal, and repeat the cycle.
If this is you, remember what George Bernard Shaw said: “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” So in order to overcome your lack of self-belief, you need to change your mindset, you need to change your “I can’t” and “It’s hard” mantras to “I can” and “Everything is possible” mantras. That is how you embrace the change, break the walls, and get to the other side. That is how you make progress. That is how you boost your self-belief and achieve your goals and dreams.
Lack of Self-Discipline
If lack of self-belief is not what stops you from making progress, then probably lack of self-discipline is. Living in a world full of distraction makes it easy for us to lose focus, get off the track, and chase something else. With multitasking being a norm and attention span of 8 seconds, which is by the way 1 second less than Goldfish’s attention span, self-discipline has become a strange and difficult word for us human beings. We no longer tend to concentrate on what is worthy. We become bored at working towards our goals and waste our precious time with the hope that we would catch up later. But later never comes because we are constantly bombarded with distractions that either we create for ourselves or others create for us. Rather than leading our lives we become slaves of our minds and before we know it we have stopped making progress. Even worse, we might have walked backward and started walking down another path full of similar distractions that guarantee a similar experience.
If this is you, remember that without self-discipline you will get nowhere. Don’t forget the words of Harry S Truman: “In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves… self-discipline with all of them came first.” To get good at self-discipline you need to get good at controlling your mind and shutting down distractions no matter how wonderful they might sound or look. With self-discipline comes progress in fast speed. With self-discipline you’d win the fast track ticket to success. How fast do you want to succeed?
Lack of Time
Every day is 86,400 seconds. Every second counts. Each second passed is part of the past and cannot be returned. All people including you and I have access to only 86,400 seconds each day. So, why some achieve a lot and still have time while others do not progress despite being “busy” all the time? Well, the secret is not in how hard we work. It is in how productive we work.
Being productive means having the quality or power of producing and yielding results. It means being efficient by doing more in less time. How can you do more in less time? By focusing on what you need to do and wasting little or no time. How many times have you wanted to do something important that would take you closer to achieving your goals and dreams but you found yourself doing something less important or not worthwhile at all? The key difference between those who are productive and those who always complain about lack of time is that productive people complete their most important tasks first while unproductive people differ their most important tasks to later. Productive people get 80% of the results they are looking for in the first 20% of the day while unproductive people use 80% of the day to accomplish only 20% of their important tasks at best.
You Don’t Truly Want It
Have you truly wanted something? If yes, you know what I am talking about. When you truly want something, you become a go-getter. You do whatever it takes to get what you truly want. You don’t care about what others say because your eye is fixed on what you want. You don’t take your eye off the target even for a moment. You are determined to get to the finish line no matter what.
When you are not fully clear about your goal or when you are not sure whether you truly want to achieve your goal, you may give up at anytime or for any reason. So if you do not truly want something, don’t even start setting that goal in the first place. Rather dig deeper and come up with a goal that you truly want to achieve. Something that really excites you. Something that makes you wake up early with energy or keeps you awake at night without feeling tired. Something that makes you avoid watching TV, wasting time on Facebook, talking to friends for hours on the phone, or doing other task that don’t add value.
Now it is time to put the following task on your top 20% to-do-list and get to work.
Spend some quality time and find out which one of these four is the showstopper. Which one is the main reason for stopping you from making progress?
Kamran Akbarzadeh, PhD
Founder of Dream Achievers Academy
Author of Leadership Soup
