Everyday, you, and about everyone else on the planet are working towards achieving a goal to improve on your present situation. Our goals are as various as our differing needs and aspirations. Your goal may be to acquire expertise in a certain endeavour; it may be to lose weight or it may be to be the next odd guy in the Guiness Book of Records.

Whatever goal it is you have, you are not achieving it and that is the reason why you sought out this article out of the million web pages on the internet. Worried by your obesity, you had a state-of-the-art “gymnasium” installed in your house. In a desperate attempt to achieve better grades you embarked on a strenuous regime of cramming and coffee. But yet it is all not working. You either seem to lack that will power to do what is necessary or you seem to be working so hard at it, yet miraculously are not achieving any meaningful result.

This article would attempt to proffer solution for your problem and would raise crucial questions which you should endeavour to examine and answer. I have painted ten different reasons of why you are not achieving your goals. We are not going treat any problem in particular like: Why you are still overweight after ten years of fasting; Why you are still unable to make your O’levels after five resits or Why you are still unable to volunteer a 5-minute speech before a very small informal audience of five people. Maybe someday I would pick up an individual problem, but presently we would be exploring why people are not achieving their goals, whatever the goals may be. Alright then, let’s get started…

You Are in Love With Your Present Situation

Come to think of it! You do not actually want to change! You may make several solemn proclamations but deep within you, you are enjoying the convenience of your present situation! You’ve only made this goal because it is noble and it is the ideal but truth be told you are not ready for the disciplined lifestyle, the rigid routine and the sacrifices and abstentions that it all entails?

Many of our predicaments seem to have been born and are thriving on a pleasurable indulgence. If you are planning on losing weight (a very common worry nowadays), then your plight is probably being promoted by an indulgent and easy-going sedentary lifestyle that you can’t rid yourself off. Likewise if you wish to make better grades and are not achieving them then you probably still have a deep attachment to the carefree lifestyle and the “focus-less” drifting that so much characterises your present routine!

Change is very difficult to achieve. It is not easy to adopt a new lifestyle overnight. People seem to always prefer the easier, more pleasurable and less-tasking path. It is difficult to find that energy to do what is necessary and so you are pulled in two different directions by two different forces that just can not live together. One – a desire to improve your present situation and the other a desire to lie back till someone pulls you up or till the medical examination report throws you into panic and alarm. And so as always the stronger force prevails. You are not achieving your goal not because you do not think it is worthwhile but because there is another equally strong or stronger force pulling you from behind. If you can stamp a firm foot down and answer the question of which of the two forces is more important you would be greatly helping your cause.

You Want To Start Tomorrow

Sometimes you hardly realise that you are procrastinating! You want to start work at your goal but work wouldn’t start now but tomorrow, where tomorrow could extend into eternity. You keep postponing the D-day finding one alibi or the other to spend one more thrilling day in your present situation. And you never get started. Most people actually conceived of their present goal 10 years ago, but one way or the other they are still on the same stair 10 years hence. Somedays they actually start and somedays they abandon or forget the goal altogether. And sadly, the goal that could have taken 5 years to achieve is taking 10 years of preparation! If you have a goal, but want to start tomorrow, then you have to start asking yourself some serious questions. Start Now! Ten years from now you may still be in the same position.

You Do Not Have an Action Plan

A question: If you were driving your car heading to some place but have no idea where “some place” is on the map would you ever get there? Perhaps you would, by accident that is or by some rare stroke of good luck!

An action plan is to a goal what road signs and maps are to a destination. If you don’t have an action plan you are not likely going to achieve your goal. You should know exactly what steps you intend to take to achieve your goal and if possible in what time frame. If you want to study more effectively you would likely need to take certain steps to achieve that. The same also, if you want to lose weight or save more money or run the 100 meters within 10 seconds.

You Lack That Really Inspirational Story

One good thing the past masters did for us was to leave footprints we could use to guide us. Life is impossible without inspiration. Often times we only spring into action when the other guy tells us that he actually did it. This is because, when we are not getting anywhere with a goal, we tend to think that it is actually impossible and then we abandon it. But when we hear that someone else had done it we begin to believe that it is possible.

You are not achieving your goal because you are not angry enough. You are not achieving your goal because you lack the motivation. You are not achieving your goal because you lack that fire.

We need to know about how a Bill Gates made it; we need to know about how an Abraham Lincoln endured it; we need to know about how a Muhammad Ali surmounted it, during those low moments of our lives, in order to have us fired up. After all if they could do it then why can’t we? If you are not the type that cares about reading about the lives of the Great then your goal could receive a new lease of life if you start doing so. Reading the lives of people I admire is something I love doing. I like to see the crucial decisions, the associations (and dissociations) that they made in their path to greatness and achievement.

You Have Too Many Goals and Lack Focus

It is not as if having many goals is bad but there will always be a problem if you want to do and achieve many things and cannot get your priorities right. It is just like running several applications on a computer system and expecting it run efficiently. It would keep skipping from one application to another till so overloaded it simply “hangs”.

A better way, I believe is to prioritise our goals and leave off the less pressing ones for tomorrow (this is not an advocacy for procrastination). Make a list of all the things you want to do, and start doing them in small, manageable steps. Adopt the very helpful habit of using a time-table which would enable you use your time more effectively. When you have achieved a desired expertise you can then go to the subsequent ones. You are actually not going anywhere if you think you can be the expert overnight. Knowledge is vast and is accumulated over a long time. Exercise patience and build a solid foundation for more complex and challenging undertakings in the future.

You Are In The Wrong Environment

Some environments do nothing but foster our present woes. By environment I would also like you to include the people that you hang around with. Look around you: Where and with whom I spend most of my time? How does this help or harm my goal? We talked of focus-less drifting the other time: If you are always at the club or some fun spot, your education would suffer. Some environments and associations are not really congenial for our progress. You might need to migrate to a more favourable environment; you might need to discard an old partnership and form a new one.

Breaking old partnerships and associations could be painful, but you have to really ask yourself what is the worth of that partnership. Ask yourself: Do these folks inspire me? Is this the most favourable climate to achieve my dreams? Would my goal be helped if I moved elsewhere? When trying to achieve your goal you really have to kill off any sentimental attachments you have for the promoters and sustainers of your predicament and face reality as it is.

You Are Reading the Wrong Manuals

If you have actually started but are not achieving anything, then go back and cross-examine the manual you are using to achieve your goal. It may well be a manual for something else or maybe it is plain crap. Go back and question the expert advice you received. Go back and re-examine your method.

I have seen many people painfully plodding a fixed routine without any improvement yet stubbornly refusing to adopt an alternative way. You need not be so conservative! If it is not working it simply is because you are using the wrong method? You can’t get a computer on by repeatedly hitting the Escape button or by some other silly procedure because a computer wasn’t meant to be started that way. So sadly you see that having an action plan is not all that there is to it, it also needs to be the right action plan. If you are already on a routine, therapy or medication and it is not working, then do be kind to yourself and find another way.

You Have Not Tried Divide and Rule

Many of our goals are intimidating when taken by themselves. They are so massive that we have never truly, really believed that we can actually ever do them. But there is a way to deal with the most ferocious and mean-looking goals and that is: Divide and Rule which you probably thought was merely a political strategy. But now you know that it is more than that! If you have a huge project to do and cannot figure just where to start, do a good job of dividing it into smaller and more manageable parts. Some people attempt to swallow a whole cow alive! Break your project down: Acquire the necessary skills and knowledge to actually do it; Look for partners and associates to help you in your work; Source for funds; Source for materials and so on.

You See Only The Pain, Sacrifices and Discomforts

You are not achieving your goal because you are not able to look beyond the sacrifices you have to make to the final reward. You are not achieving your goal because whenever you think about it the next picture that comes to your mind is one of you undergoing a daily self-inflicted punishment. And who wants that anyway?

To succeed in your goal you have to be able to understand that every sacrifice is temporary. Once you have started with a routine your body becomes used to it and slowly but surely, it becomes a habit. To succeed in your goal you have to be visionary. Although two pictures would always form in your mind, one ugly and one pretty, you should be able to understand that the prettier one would carry the day.

You Haven’t Sought Outside Help

We are humans and we have our limits. Very often the solution to our problems may lie beyond us. Since we cannot concentrate all the knowledge and resources we need to ourselves we would one day or the other need external assistance. If your goal is suffering seek out helpful advice from friends, experts, doctors and specialists – solace might be a phone call away! If your project is suffering you could do with the injection of fresh ideas and funds from outside. If you are suffering from an addiction; if you are suffering from an anxiety, opening up and discussing your problem might be what you need. Seek help and discuss your predicament and ensure you judiciously try out the advice so generously given to you.

Conclusion

Well that is that! If you have a goal that is withering and suffering on the shelf then this is the chance for you to know why. Are you somewhat attached to your present predicament? Are you doing the wrong things? Have you asked the experts? Have you been postponing the D-day? These are some of the pertinent questions you need to ask yourself if you are going to make any headway with your goal. If any goal is to be achieved, then you need to take concrete, determined and decisive steps towards achieving it.

Things actually are capable of being better and what is impossible might actually be very much possible. The more you delay the larger the mountain grows. However, I believe YOU are not going to quit and YOU would actually finally find that will power to do what is necessary.