These 5 Things Are Stopping You From Reaching Your Goals

Our daily habits and thought processes are the foundation of our success or failure.

The excuses we make, the things we are too stubborn to change, and the lack of discipline can make or break the amount of success we have in our lives. It’s critical to stay self-aware and to learn what we have to change to live the life we want.

Here are a few habits you may do that will guarantee failure when it comes to reaching your goals.

1. You Lack Accountability

With our personal goals, we don’t have someone reminding us of deadlines or telling us we need to drink enough water. We are in charge of holding ourselves accountable for these things. Who knew it could be so tough? The next time you spend your time reminding yourself that you don’t have to go through with your goals because the only person it will fail is yourself, I want you to realize that disappointing yourself is just as frustrating, if not more so than disappointing someone else.

If you don’t take your success seriously, you can’t expect anyone else to. By learning the skills it takes to be your own boss, whether it be for a business or just becoming the boss of the small things in life, learning to hold yourself accountable can be the key to your success. Here are a few tips I have learned along the way.

Utilize technology to help hold you to your goals.

There are many resources out there, whether it be a reminders app on your phone, Google Calendar, or a favorite of mine, Asana. You can set specific times and tasks that send you notifications reminding you what you promised yourself you would do.

Take advantage of your friends and family.

If you can ask someone to help hold you accountable for what you say you will do, do it. Have your friend text you and ask you if you completed something, or make your partner get on you about it. I have my boyfriend added to all of my online calendars, so when he sees I didn’t complete something, he makes a point to guilt-trip me about it; doing that adds just the right amount of pressure to get my tasks done.

Reward yourself!

This one is my favorite. There is the reward that comes with the satisfaction of marking something done on your to-do list, but tasting that glass of wine you promised yourself you could have after you finished makes it oh-so-worth-it. Reward yourself for even the smallest things. It makes a difference and makes achieving your goals a lot more fun.

2. You Fear Failure

A person who never made a mistake never tried something new.” — Albert Einstein

Failure is one of my favorite things! Sounds odd, right? The way I look at it, failure is a signal that you are getting somewhere. You can’t be working towards something big if you’re not failing the entire way through. If you don’t fail at least a couple of times on your journey, your dreams aren’t big enough.

You remember that we’re human, yes? As humans, we are destined to make mistakes. We are not creatures of perfection, no matter how much we want to believe we are. We would know nothing if we didn’t fail, because then how would we learn?

Next time you try something and fail, I challenge you to celebrate that failure. Get excited, because that means you are one step closer to succeeding. Study what you did wrong, learn from it, and then try again. I promise you, when you shift your perspective on this and start to love failure, everything else will flow right along 10x smoother.

3. You Think You’ll Start ‘Someday’

Someday, aka the day that will never come. That was my favorite excuse before I started working toward accomplishing my big goals. “I’ll start tomorrow.” or “I feel better starting at the beginning of the month.” Sorry to break it to you, but that just means you’re never going to do it. You will never feel like putting in the hard work that it takes to become successful. You won’t wake up one day magically motivated and ready to put in your all.

Motivation is a myth.

Motivation is a word we use when we don’t know how to admit to ourselves that we need to practice self-discipline. We are lying to ourselves when we say we can’t do something because we just aren’t motivated or inspired. I get it; self-discipline is hard. It’s much easier to look at other people doing what we want to be doing and think, “Oh, that will be me, once the time is right.” You’ve got to get out of that mindset. The time is right now.

Here’s a tip:

Make a list.

Bust out that pen and paper, and yes, I suggest pen and paper rather than writing something on your phone first. Write out exactly what you want to accomplish, and below that, write out every small step that it will take to achieve that. Breaking down your goals into bite-sized pieces will help it seem a lot more realistic, and a lot easier to lose an excuse for putting it off.

After you create those lists, as detailed as you can, put them into your calendar or to-do list for specific times and dates. Give yourself deadlines, figure out rewards if you accomplish it, just as long as you get started.

4. You Won’t Break Your Routine

Change is hard, yet it is so essential to growth and success. If you go through life doing the same things every day, you cannot expect anything to change. By refusing to wake up earlier, kick your bad habit, or take the step to get out of your comfort zone, you are sealing your fate of being an unsuccessful person. Comfort zones are for settling, for accepting that you will not do anything more than what you’re already doing right now.

Do something that terrifies you every day.

Doing this can be so much fun if you let it be. Being someone who suffers from extreme anxiety, the things that terrify me can be something minuscule to someone else, and that’s okay! By choosing to do something that scares you, even if it’s small, you are taking a big step towards growing. Eventually, these things won’t be scary for you at all. You’ll become a pro at something that you never thought you could do.

Have an open mind and learn to look at things from multiple perspectives.

There are so many people on this earth, and nobody views the world the same way you do. That’s something I love to think about often. We see the world and events in such a small way, even when we live with someone, you are still experiencing life differently than they are.

Learning to look at things from different perspectives can give you a chance to find such beauty in the world that you may have missed before. Appreciate the small stuff. Challenge yourself to fall head over heels in love with life.

5. You Rely On Others For Validation

We’re all guilty of it. We grow up looking to our caregiver for approval on everything that we do. The reality of it is that nobody will see our dreams the same way that we do. A piece that can seem to be a crappy piece of work to one, you could see as a masterpiece. You cannot depend on other people to always cheer you on and build you up, as lovely as that would be.

Only you know what you’re capable of doing.

I think we’ve all been in a situation where somebody completely underestimates you and your abilities. That feeling you get when you show them they’re wrong is the best, right? Hold on to that feeling and do it every day. Trying to live up to anyone’s expectations other than your own is detrimental to your success and your mental health, and it’s just not worth it.

Instead of valuing the praise from someone, learn to appreciate the criticism.

Don’t let criticism define you, but take what you want from it as a chance to learn. If you put your pride aside and listen to what others say, extremely lightly, there’s a lot of room to grow and learn from it. Remember what I said about learning to look from different perspectives? You can use that to learn in this scenario, too.

Success is different for everyone. No two people will have the same desired outcome.

Life is a big mess for all of us, but by holding ourselves accountable, make sure we don’t compare ourselves to others and don’t wait for ‘someday’ to come, I think we’ll all be all right. Don’t give up your dreams and don’t let anyone tell you what you can or can’t do. Take on this world and your goals head-on, no matter how big or how small, and believe in yourself.