3 Steps to Stop Giving Up on Your Goals
Most people use the beginning of the year as a time to set goals they want to accomplish in the new year and make decisions that might include adopting healthy habits, increasing income or productivity, or improving work-home balance, for example. This is because beginnings often carry feelings of enthusiasm for achievement, and increase determination to achieve hopes, which contributes to preparing the person and pushing them to make the necessary effort to achieve these goals.
While studies show that a large percentage of people give up on their goals after a short time, researchers found that 25% of them give up their decisions after only 7 days, while 60% of them give up their decisions within 6 months, for a number of reasons related to the person themselves, and sometimes to the goal itself. This article offers you 3 steps to help you overcome this challenge and not give up on your goals in the middle of the road.
Written vs. Unwritten Goals:
Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychologist and life coach, headed the Department of Psychology at the Dominican University in California during 1977-1999. She conducted a study on how goal achievement is affected in the workplace by writing goals, adhering to actions of commitment, and being held accountable for these actions. In her study, she used the help of 267 participants, ranging in age from 23 to 73, from diverse backgrounds in the United States of America.
Participants were randomly allocated to five groups, and the first group was asked to simply think about their work-related goals, which they hoped to achieve over a four-week period, and to rate each goal according to difficulty, importance, the availability of the skills, and resources to achieve the goal, commitment and motivation.
The rest of the groups were asked to write down their goals, then rank them on the same dimensions that were given to the first group. In addition, the third group was asked to write down the actions they would commit to in order to achieve each goal.
The fourth group had to write down the goals and actions they would commit to, as well as share those commitments with a friend, while the fifth group went the extra mile by doing all of the above plus sending a friend a weekly progress report.
At the end of the study, individuals in the first group achieved only 43% of their declared goals, while the fourth group achieved 64% of their declared goals. The goals in the fifth group; however, were the most successful. On average, 76% of their goals were achieved.
What do we learn from this study?
Your success in achieving your goals depends on 3 steps.
1. Writing goals:
Psychologists say that when you write down your goals, a transformation of your self-identity takes place. This is because the brain does not distinguish between reality and imagination, and it sees every thought as truth, and always works to prove it. In other words, the brain cannot distinguish between what we want and what we have, so it immediately absorbs the desired result in your self-identity, and makes it an essential part of it.
However, if we have not achieved the goal yet, our newly obtained self-image no longer corresponds to our reality, and this leads to a state of constant tension about our self-image, which the brain begins trying to solve by working on achieving the goals. Therefore, the advice that psychologists give you in this regard is not to rush and take goal setting lightly. This is because goal setting will have an immediate impact on who you are, and you need to make sure that you set an appropriate and well thought out goal.
2. Commitment to goals:
The next step to push you towards your goals is to formulate them in a language that makes them clear to you. Dr. David Kuhl says: “In order for your goals to unleash your subconscious mind, they must be measurable and time-bound. Remember that vague goals lead to ambiguous results, and if your goals are devoid of these measurements, they are simply good ideas, wishes, or preferences, but they cannot be considered real goals.” Good goals that can be achieved must meet the following conditions:
- They are specific, clear, and precise.
- They are measurable, giving you and others the ability to track your progress.
- They are achievable, yet challenging at the same time.
- They are relevant, related to your overall life goals.
- They are time-bound, tied to a deadline.
In a study he conducted, Dr. Kuhl found that Americans who write down and review their goals regularly earn nine times more money over the course of their lives than those who do not set goals. You should also read them out loud if possible because reading the goals out loud with passion and enthusiasm, and imagining as if each goal has been achieved will activate the power of your desires and increase what psychologists call “constructive tension” in your brain, as your brain seeks to bridge the gap between your current reality and your vision of your goal. Reading and imagining them over and over increases constructive tension and motivation, which stimulates your creativity and raises your awareness of the resources that can help you achieve your goals.
At the same time, psychology tells us that the brain has a complex reward and punishment mechanism. With every achievement you make on the way to achieving your goals, the brain releases dopamine in our bodies, which creates a sense of pleasure, and this chemical elevation in mood keeps us motivated and focused, so we feel physical comfort when we take steps toward our goals.
To activate these feelings, psychologists advise dividing long-term goals into short-term goals through several measurable steps, thus establishing a regular reward system to motivate you, caused by the release of “dopamine” in your body, so break down the goal so to make the first steps simple in order to keep your mind on track toward a major goal.
3. Accountability:
If you are serious about achieving your goals, you need an external support system to which you announce your goals and your commitment to achieving them that can track your progress and support you psychologically and emotionally as you progress towards achieving your goals. It is important to realize the fact that once you set a goal, three things will stand out that stop most people from achieving their goals which are worries, fears, and obstacles. Remember that these things are part of the process, and you need to be aware of them, addressing them rather than letting them stop you.
Psychologists assure that this is normal since it is in human nature to tend to stay in the comfort zone. Setting goals means for the brain to stop taking the easy route, and start thinking: “let’s do our best”, a process associated with many thoughts about the pain caused by the possibility of failure to achieve goals. At the same time, these thoughts deprive you of the wonderful taste of satisfaction and growth that comes from achieving goals.
Worries are simply thoughts that appear on the surface, giving you reasons not to try to achieve the goal. These reasons make the goal impossible to achieve for the brain, causing you to stop all the time. Because you are aware of these worries, you have the ability to face them and get over them. For example, if you have a goal to run a marathon at the end of this year, worries such as: “You are too old” or “You might get injured” or “You have to get up two hours early every summer and winter” will appear on your mind. You have to stop and ask yourself, am I willing to pay this price of inconvenience to achieve my goal?
As for fears, they are feelings that may appear in the form of fear of rejection, fear of failure, fear that your knowledge and skills are insufficient, fear of making yourself a laughingstock, fear of being psychologically, physically, and emotionally hurt, fear of losing money, and other fears. You have to know that these fears are common to appear, and this is part of the process of achieving goals. All you have to do as they appear is to accept them and deal with them with logic: What if what I fear does not happen? What if my wish came true, how would my feelings be then? And start experiencing the feelings you really want to taste.
Obstacles are external circumstances that go beyond thoughts and feelings. They are part of the reality you live in. Your lack of enough money to start your project may be an obstacle, or maybe you need investors, and maybe there are laws in the country in which you live that hinder your progress in your project. What would you do then? You should know that these obstacles appear whenever your goal is greater. They are obstacles that the world throws in the way of your progress, and they test your adherence, commitment, and determination to achieve these goals.
Remember that obstacles, just like worries and fears, are things you have to deal with, and never a sign that you should stop. They are an indication that you are properly learning about yourself and your surroundings, and that your ability to solve and overcome these obstacles in a creative and innovative way will increase your abilities. Obstacles give you the true potential for self-development.
The goal of overcoming these worries, fears, and obstacles is the self-development that the process of confronting and dealing with them will bring you, and not the material rewards that you will get if you overcome them and achieve your goal. They will also provide you with a learning opportunity that can never be taken away from you, and they will be the key to bringing out the best version of you.
The brain works to avoid the deprivation it will suffer from failing to achieve your goals because failing to achieve the goal means the supply of dopamine is interrupted, which is painful in itself. Our brain treats a goal as a valuable possession, and failing to achieve it triggers feelings of loss, anxiety, fear, and sadness, so what should you do to avoid that?
First, be aware that these risks will have a negative psychological impact on you.
Second, start a conversation with the people you trust, or the person who is keeping track of your progress in achieving your goals about possible solutions to overcome obstacles and about the most appropriate way to address worries and fears.
Conclusion:
In this article, we talked about 3 important steps to help you not give up on achieving your goals, which are writing them down, sticking to them by formulating them clearly, and finally creating a system of accountability and support to track your progress and to provide psychological and emotional support when needed.
What you need to start doing today is taking a pause to reflect on the various aspects of your life and what you have already achieved, and think about what you aspire to achieve in the foreseeable future, which may be a year or more. Write down your ideas, or as many ideas as possible, then review your ideas and make sure that they cover all aspects of your life, then reformulate them into clearer goals that meet the five conditions for goals mentioned in the article. The last and most important step is to create a special support system from friends or family, and it is definitely best to use the help of an experienced coach or mentor to track your progress in achieving your goals and provide the necessary support.