Four reasons why you didn't follow up with your new goal
Oh my dear… do you realize that we’ve already said goodbye to January?
Yes, just like that the first month of this new decade is gone, finito, bye-bye…
And where are you now compared to the first of the year? Have you stuck to your resolutions? Have you made any progress towards what you had in mind a month ago?
If you are like me, you probably get all excited with all the possibilities that come with a new fresh beginning. Whenever a new season starts, I feel the energy rising, new the ideas coming and fresh plans birthing inside of me.
But, the problem is, that sometimes, so many of those new plans never get implemented.
The ideas are there, but the actions don’t follow, and then, when I look back, I feel disappointed because I wasted another year…
Has this ever happened to you? Have you started something at the beginning of the year, only to stop doing it a few weeks after?
Have you felt the disappointment of not following through?
How can you avoid this from happening again this year?
Well, now that we are already in February, I think the firs step is to STOP and EVALUATE how we did during the past month.
Before you get too deep into the year and let yourself drift back into old habits and old routines, it’s time to stop and check.
It’s time to be HONEST and determine what did you do right, what things you can do better, where do you need to pivot in order to continue in the direction of our goals.
If you want to see if you are heading in the right direction, it’s important to make these routine checkpoints along the way.
Imagine that you are travelling to a new city, which is six hours away, and you don't check if you are passing the correct signs on your way there. Imagine that you are not checking the mileage markers in the highway, and you only wait to see if you arrived at the right city after six hours have passed… I don't think you would want to do that, right?
You’d check along the way if the signs are the ones that should be there, if you are going in the right direction, and if you see that you are lost, you’d take an exit and change your route to get back towards your final destination, wouldn’t you?
Why not doing the same with your resolutions?
You don't want to wait until the end of the year to see if you achieved your goal. You need to check along the way, to figure if you are still on track or you need to reroute.
And now that we are at the beginning of the month is probably a good place to stop and evaluate.
When you look back one month, what do you see? How did you do?
It’s time to see if you achieved what you needed to do for the past month.
This is the time to be honest with yourself, it is not about judging or pretending everything is going well. The more sincere you are with yourself, the better you will be in identifying those areas that are working and those that are not.
And then, you can repeat those strategies that worked for you and rethink the ones that didn't.
So, what happens if you find out that you didn't progress at all in your goals? That you started all excited for a couple of days but then you didn't continue with your new routines?
There could be thousands of reasons why you didn't follow up with the new goal. But let’s focus in some of the reasons related with how you set up your goal.
Maybe your goal was too broad and you didn't know where to start.
Maybe your goal was too big and you got discouraged and overwhelmed just thinking about it.
Maybe your goal was not enticing enough; it wasn't pulling you in the right direction.
Maybe you weren’t clear about why you want to achieve your goal.
Like I said, these are just a few reasons, but if any of these are stopping you from progressing forward, now it’s the perfect moment to evaluate what is it that you can do to fix the issue.
1- Your goal was too broad:
If your goal was too broad, lacked clarity and you didn't know where to start, maybe trying to set up a SMART type of goal can help you with the clarity. Remember your goal needs to be very specific, you need to be able to know how you will measure your progress, it needs to be something big but still achievable so you are not discouraged, you need to make it realistic for you to believe you can get there and you need to have a timeline to get there.
2- Your goal was too big:
If your goal was too big and you got overwhelmed, why not trying to break it down into smaller targets? Take the big idea and break it down into smaller goals to achieve each quarter, and then each month, and each week, each day… set your own mile markers along the way.
Focusing on achieving each day’s target instead of looking at the huge picture helps you getting momentum and when you know you are making progress, you get more motivated to keep on going.
But, one thing that will help you keeping that momentum is to make sure that you actually stop and acknowledge the improvements you’ve made and give yourself the recognition needed. As BJ Fogg says in his new book Tiny Habits, focusing on the positive emotions reinforces your habits more than focusing on the negative ones and celebration is one way to ensure you keep reinforcing the good habits.
Why not setting up your rewards for the mile markers when you break down your goals? Think in advance what will you give yourself as a celebration when you achieve a target. And it doesn't need to be anything material, doing a small victory dance with your favorite song is as helpful as buying a small gift for yourself…
3- Your goal was not enticing:
If your goal was not pulling you towards it, maybe you didn't set it up so it is emotionally moving you. As Tony Robbins says, your goal should be so enticing and compelling that gets you moving towards the goal so you don't have to push yourself only relying in will power. Thinking about the reasons why you want to achieve your dream can help you setting up an emotionally motivating goal. That is tied to the last point…
4- You don’t know your why:
Finally, if you are not clear about why you want to achieve your goal, you will not have a good reason to persevere when things get difficult and chances are you will not be motivated to continue working on your goal.
It’s crucial that you have a clear reason on why do you want to achieve that goal. That reason will keep you centered whenever you lose your objective and will help you go back to your tracks whenever you get out of it.
Try asking yourself:
Why is that goal important for you? Why is it imperative that you achieve that specific goal this year? Why MUST you do it?
Am I willing to spend the time to achieve this goal? Am I willing to work to get to where I want to go? Is this something I will still enjoy doing even when I’m tired and uninspired? Why?
So, now, I will stop and do my own evaluation. It’s the time of the month to see how I’m doing… and you… why don't you share with me here what is it that you do to see your progress? Do you have any routines in place? Do you use small rewards for your accomplishments? Do you have a clear why? Please share below, I’d love to hear from you!!
xoxo,
Sofia