20 unknown factors preventing you from achieving your goals

Are you wondering why you still haven’t achieved your goals? You are not alone. Anytime I set a goal and it’s taking so long to actualize, I question myself, my surroundings and everything around me. This left me with no choice but to write on the topic “factors preventing you from achieving your goal”

Before achieving any goal, you’ll have to set it. Goal setting is a powerful process of thinking about your ideal future and motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future into reality. It serves as direction or compass to the direction you want to face in life.

You might be a magnificent goal setter, moreover setting the goal is the first step isn’t it? but then you realize you hardly ever achieve your goals. Year after year, months after months, and weeks after weeks, you find yourself setting these goals and to you, you do or you’ve done what you believe is the best you can do but yet to no avail and now you are wondering where you are missing it all up.

What’s wrong? What’s preventing you from achieving those goals?

Well, you have got to understand that achieving these goals is not as easy as it may sound. It is pretty much easy to set goals with the feeling of knowing the steps to take to achieve them but then sometimes it’s a little bit more than that.

There could be lots of rough paths ahead and also obstacles which have to be overcome before these goals can be achieved, some traits and habits might need to be dropped, while some others might need to be cultivated, else goals would only remain our fantasies written down on paper because we lack the very tools that are very necessary for their actualization.

Now Let’s take a look at 20 possible factors restricting you from achieving your goals.

No Picture

It’s one thing to have or set goals but it’s a different ball game when you decide to create a picture of those goals.

Do you have a mentally carved out picture of your goals? Do you know exactly what they look like? Many of us have goals but really have no mental picture of these goals and thereby we have no drive.

Usually, they say “you become what you think about” of course you’re no different from your mindset, the same principle applies; you can only achieve what you can picture. When you have a picture, you would have a vision of something truly worth working for, something that calls forth the best of your talents, energy and focus

“The magic of creation all begins with the picture in your head, If you can create it, you can achieve it” – DollyMchottney

Lack of Reason

Here is another factor that can hinder you from achieving your goal. You do not even have a reason why you have to. The reason here has to do with “Your Strong Why”. Your Strong Why acts as a motivational tool and drive that would help you to keep pushing until you achieve your goals but when you lack it, you are prone to give up easily at the slightest chance.

” Your WHY creates a WAY” – DollyMchottney.

Doubt

Along the way, doubts might creep in and these have a way of slowing you down during your pursuit. You’ll start asking yourself questions such as “am I sure I made the right decision?” am I ready for the task? And some other negative questions.

this does little or nothing to boost your self-confidence but rather just give room for what I would like to call the fright- flight reaction, where fear only gets chipped in, making you shy away from taking steps & actions towards your goals thereby holding you from achieving your goals.

“1 min spent doubting is equivalent to 1 min missed out on possibilities” -DollyMchottney

Fear

With fear comes doubt and with doubt comes fear. Fear is inevitable but it must be avoided. When you have fear either because you think the goal is too big or the goal is unachievable, you’ve already accepted defeat which will go a long way in holding you from achieving your goal.

If your goals, aspirations and dreams don’t scare you they are not big enough. But letting fear get the best of you is already the beginning of failure

“You accept defeat without a fight when you let fear get the best of you”-DollyMchottney

Recommended: Dealing with fears: 10 Genuine ways to deal with fear

Excuses

Well, Often too, fear breeds excuses. Once you get scared you start making up excuses for yourself There’s nothing new under the sun. If you believe that, you’ll know that no matter the situation you find yourself, people have achieved their goals from that same situation. So why give excuses when it will not guarantee your success. Fight every day till you turn the so-called excuse into a stepping stone so it won’t hinder you from achieving your goal

Distraction

During our course of the pursuit, distraction is something that is bound to show up. It is not usually planned or asked for, just like weed it, shows up where it’s not needed. In the quest to achieving your goal, total concentration and commitment are needed. Distraction is the villain in that picture which needs to be defeated to produce a meaningful result. Fight distractions and prevent it from halting you from achieving your goal.

Procrastination

This is the conscious act of wanting to achieve your goal anytime but now. Be it tomorrow, the upper week, next year etc. only that the day will never come for procrastination to always prevail. I see it as a habit, better put a very bad habit that should be unlearned as soon as possible for your good. Fighting procrastination takes you one step closer to achieving your goal.

see also: WHAT ARE THE DANGERS OF PROCRASTINATION?

Lack of passion

We have various goal motivators, “reason” as mentioned earlier is one and “passion” I regard as another.

You would not have the motivation to achieve a goal you have no passion for. As trivial as it may seem, this could go a long way in restraining you from achieving your goals. So make sure those goals are something you truly have passion for and it would be easier to pursue them but if the opposite is the case, you’ll end up struggling.

When we lack passion we easily get lazy. Find an interest and create passion because a man’s heart is in what he has an interest and where your heart is, your mind and focus would be.

The goal motivator “Passion” heightens the achievement of Set goals” -DollyMchottney

Laziness

This is the feeling of not wanting to do anything, not willing to pay the sacrifice for achieving your goal.

It is also the opposite of hard work. Hard work here has to do with those practical actions that need to be carried out and done.

But when one is lazy and not willing to pay the price that their goal requires they eventually end up not achieving it because they are not willing to do the work. Laziness is a major factor that can hold one back from achieving their goals.

Recommended: Being lazy- 9 Unbelievable Benefits

Lack of Consistency

Consistency has to do with the act of continuously doing a particular thing or acting in a particular way and carrying out an action constantly that is in line with your goals.

It’s not enough to act once or twice, it’s not enough to try today and try next week or next month. Achieving your goals requires a conscious effort to be consistent with whatever that would draw you closer to your goals. Be consistent with your goals.

Lack of Self Discipline

Self-discipline is one of the most important factors that are necessary for the course of goal actualization. It takes a goal-oriented man to be self-disciplined. Self-discipline is the ability to control oneself and do what is needed to be done at the right time.

The ability to adhere to one’s plan and decision regardless. Lack of self-discipline can deprive you of achieving your goals.

“Without self-discipline, you would be like a wave that moves back and forth at the slightest wind” – DollyMchottney

Must read: Why is self-discipline necessary?

Low-self esteem

I’ve always pitied people with low self-esteem because I believe it’s not of their making.

It is most times induced on someone from external factors such as abuse, mockery, isolation etc. it is the act of seeing yourself less than others because you feel that’s how others see you.

This factor is very difficult to overcome but can be fought. It keeps you isolated, depressed and below your best thereby holding you from achieving your goal because low self-esteem is one of the factors that deprive one of maximizing his/her full potential.

Negative association

“Friends of the same feathers flock together”, “show me your friend and I’ll tell you who you are” are just two of the famous quotes that say a lot about the friends you keep.

Remember if you want to achieve your goal, the association you keep has to be positive about it so they won’t end up demoralizing and demotivating you. As you set your goals, make sure you set the kind of association you want to keep so they won’t end up holding you back from achieving your goal.

if that kind of association can’t be found, you should isolate yourself for the time being.

Negativity

With negative association comes negativity as well as pessimism. But still, it’s one thing to have a negative association but then again its another to seem like a natural pessimist.

A pessimist is someone with the usual belief that evil would most likely or better still always prevail over good. Those who think something bad is most likely to happen or your belief, goals and whatever you might have hoped for is bound not to happen.

In simple terms, pessimists are negative thinkers. Inviting negativity during the journey of trying to actualize your goal could hinder you from actually actualizing it because

“The Universe works in accordance to our beliefs” -DollyMchottney

See also: HOW TO DEAL  WITH NEGATIVE EMOTIONS-Causes of Negative Emotions

Comfort

There’s someplace called a comfort zone and we all know about it. It’s a place where we feel overly comfortable. A place that you won’t feel motivated to set or achieve goals all because you have all you need. This place needs to be avoided to give your life meaning. Goals are hardly achieved in a comfort zone. Leave your comfort zone today so it won’t prevent you from achieving your goal.

Misplaced priorities

When you set goals, those goals automatically become your priorities. And those are the things you need to put first in your to-do list. Every other thing becomes secondary.

The moment you prioritize something else above your goals, you’ve automatically misplaced priorities which makes it very difficult for you to achieve your goals. Get your priorities right so it won’t hold you from achieving your goal.

Recommended: Misplaced priorities dangers: 10 lethal dangers of misplaced priorities

People’s Opinion

Though people’s opinion could be helpful, it’s secondary to your opinion.

You’ve set a good goal for yourself and now you are distracted from your goals because of someone else’s shabby opinion who of course doesn’t see what you see and how you see it.

They could come whispering you are not good enough, opinions that introduce doubts and fear or make u feel less of yourself which could, in turn, affect your mindset and thereby slow you down or better still hold you back from achieving your goals.

As long as you are on the right track, take little or nothing from other people’s opinion so it won’t prevent you from achieving your goal

Lack of patience

Patience is an important virtue on the road to success. As we all know, Rome was not built in a day and little drops of water make a mighty ocean. How patient are you with your little drops?

Often, lack of patience makes us lose balance and throws us off course because all we just want is the quick result along with the big picture. Forgetting and ignoring the little pictures which are the daily progress towards our goal

Learn to be patient with yourself and take it one step at a time.

Perfectionism

You might be wondering how being perfect can hold you back from achieving your goal.

Well yes, perfectionism can be a huge advantage but can be as harmful if it is unhealthy. Perfectionism can be seen as a personal trait characterized by persons who strive for flawlessness.

But then these have been seen to be associated with fear, anxiety and most importantly procrastination because they hardly ever want to take a step until they feel perfect about it or they are positive of the result.

These are traits we’ve already highlighted as factors that could hinder one from achieving their goals.

Lack of Necessary Skill

We’ve talked about working hard and taking action to achieve your goal. Sometimes our goals require necessary skills that we might lack before they can be actualized. Part of the actions we would need to take is to get ourselves equipped with those necessary skills required to actualize our goals because lack of these would end up holding us back.

Knowing these factors should help you weigh the part where you are weak so you can start acting immediately. The time is now.

Remember someday is not a day of the week.

kindly share with us other factors that you feel were omitted and share to family and friends

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