Why You are Struggling to Reach Your Goals

Confession Time: The inspiration for this post came after somewhat of a personal derailing of my daily habits last week.  In an effort to get myself back on course, I started writing this as a reminder of why it’s so important not to let your good habits die.  And in doing that, I started thinking about what a huge role habits play in ALL of our abilities to achieve our stated goals.  

So.  Why don’t we meet our goals?  Why do we often fail to achieve objectives that we personally have designated as important?  Well, in large part, it’s because we fail to take in to account how what we do everyday contributes to these larger intentions.

What You Do Every Day

Earlier this year I read Gretchen Rubin’s book  Better Than Before. Before that I read Charles Duhigg’s  The Power of Habit when it was one of my book club’s picks.  Both explore the concept that what you do each day dictates who you become, what goals are achieved and which are not.  It’s common sense, but how many of us consciously put it into practice?

If you want more money, you need a near daily focus on either where your money is going now and how to cut back or on where you can find more money.  Want to run a marathon?  You need to run most days and progressively build the mileage each week.  If you want better friendships or a better marriage, you need to do a thing or two each day that encourages that result.

This year I made a concerted effort to focus my daily habits on supporting my greater goals.  For me “most days” translates to Monday – Friday and I give myself the weekend off.  Your days may be different but if you want to see results, I’d recommend that you truly commit to upholding your habits most days of the week (i.e., four or more).  A few of my top goals for this year include:

• Becoming fluent in Spanish – To work towards this, I’ve committed to completing a minimum of two Duolingo online Spanish classes every day Monday – Friday.
• Reducing household clutter – Go through mail, papers and generally pick up every day Monday – Friday while prepping dinner/waiting for things to cook.
• Growing this blog – Complete something growth related every day Monday – Friday.  This resulted in a more defined plan that includes reaching out to 3-5 bloggers every day, pinning a certain number of pins per week, participating in a certain number of blog hops each week, etc.
• Staying Fit/Maintaining Weight – work out, record food and make good choices Monday – Friday.  On the weekend – Katie bar the door – I’ll eat and drink what I like!

Result: Progress Toward Goals

The results have been good!  The house is less cluttered, while it’s unlikely I’ll be fluent by year’s end, my knowledge of Spanish is steadily increasing, Natty Gal is growing in both page views and followers, and I feel both fit and weight stable.  Which is why I became so upset last week when I didn’t uphold any of these habits and had no good reason for doing so. This week I vow to be back on track.  For some of you this tip may seem obvious, but for me the power of every day versus longer, less frequent sessions of working toward my goals was a true revelation. Seeing results makes life satisfying and is the reason why we undertake habits to begin with.  Don’t lose momentum!

Self Evaluation

• What goals did you set this year?
• Are you progressing toward them in the way that you had hoped?
  • Yes – Great, keep up the good work!  Do you have any new goals you want to add?
  • No
    • Are your daily habits helping or hindering your progress?
      • Helping: Then what else could be the issue?  Was the goal too broad in focus?  Was it dependent on someone else?  Try to narrow down the problem so you can work toward a solution.
      • Hindering: What can you change TODAY?  What small thing can you start doing TODAY that would take you a step closer toward achieving your goals?

Little steps add up!  Decide to start living your most satisfying life TODAY!