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Reach your goals: A dream is one of the most fascinating gifts you can have. Even more powerful is the journey to reach your goals. One of the most common reasons which stand in the way of achieving our goals is the reasons we tell ourselves. This article is a dedication for the reasons we tell ourselves which in turn prevent us from reaching our goals. Key tips mentioned in this article are:

• Avoid Rationalisations – The excuses for not doing something
• Make the dream realistic
• Nourish your motivation for to reach your goals
• Mentally prepare for the challenges of the goal
• Address your doubts about the capability to reach your goals
• Alternate choices and Plan B’s
• Listen to Feedback

Reach your goals – Why do we give reasons?

Before delving into the details, I’d like to spend some time on why we give these reasons to ourselves? If we’re being very objective – do you need an explanation for the actions you do?

You have complete freedom right? No one to answer for apart from yourself. Yet, we feel the need to give ourselves reasons about why something was not successful. The only explanation I can come up with is that we’re trying to give these reasons to the self-image.

The self-image represents the values, goals and dreams you stand for. Each time something goes against these standards, you find yourself finding reasons although no one is explicitly asking for them. With this background, we now talk about the reasons to avoid reaching your goals.

Rationalisations – The excuses for not doing something

One of the most common culprits for not reaching our goals is the reasons we have for it. These rationalisations usually manifest in the form of

• It was too difficult
• Perhaps this wasn’t meant to be for me
• Luck was not on my side

And many other similar reasons. You get the drift right? Rationalisations are a collection of all reasons as to why you did not reach your goals.

Pro Tip: Rationalisations eat into your time and give you no real benefit. Instead, just accept what has happened and focus on what you’re willing to do next.

Make the dream realistic

By this, I don’t mean that your dreams should be constrained. You should be able to dream of the wildest possible or impossible things in the world. But these dreams need to be broken down into practical realities as well. If you haven’t broken them down into milestones and actionable steps, the dream is dead even before it starts.

Most people talk about dreams romantically, but not spend time breaking them down into milestones. One of the best ways to break down a dream is by using the SMART goal methodology where you can constantly monitor how you’re performing in line with your dream.

Nourish your motivation for the goal

This might sound a little like the above and closely hinges on you understanding the dream. To reach your goals, you must look within and understand the source of energy. Motivation is a very powerful influencer in achieving your goals and must be used very carefully.

Just like everything else, even motivation needs nourishment and building. If you can, make a note of all the reasons why you want to achieve a goal. Keep building the list of reasons and thinking about how achieving this goal will make you feel. Motivation and dreams are not a one-way street, they need to be taken care of to flourish and grow.

Mentally prepare for the challenges of the goal

Most people generally have a dream and immediately set out working for it. They don’t spend time understanding what the goal means and the things they’d need to give up to achieve these goals. As much as I admire the urgency to get started, you need to create a strategy.

I appreciate it sounds a bit dull to create and plan, strategise etc. This might sound a bit paradoxical because we recently talked about how execution is more important than planning. Nevertheless, spend some time understanding what this goal means to you. Nothing worthwhile ever comes without a sacrifice or a risk. Mentally prepare yourself for the things that you are willing to give up to reach your goals.

Address your doubts about the capability to reach your goals

The advice we generally receive about negative thoughts is to ignore them or distract ourselves. Sorry to say this, but I find that advice as rubbish. Your emotions are the most powerful communicators. If you start ignoring the message they are sending, you’re downright being disrespectful!

If your emotions or thoughts are creating doubts about yourself or hinting at fears – develop ways to overcome these fears. Fears usually have a message and it is not that you’re incapable. But if you have messages about being incapable of a certain goal – think of the additional things you need to reach your goals.

Pro Tip: Remember, none of these emotions are denials. They are just asking you to get ready for the quest of achieving your goals and dreams.

Alternate choices and Plan B’s

The best way to force yourself into a goal is by not having a fallback option. As much as this works for a goal, I do worry about your emotional and mental health. We can’t have a choice where one side is extremely successful and the other is an abject failure. That can’t work.

Your emotions need protection and care in case things go wrong. It is all great to go after your goals and achieve them. But give yourself breathing space. To reach your goals, you need to find a clear path for your mind to be relaxed and focused. Don’t force yourself into a fear where failure can only mean a debilitating outcome. I have tried that and failed miserably each time.

Listen to Feedback

This is one of the most important tips to reach your goals. By nature and definition, these goals are large and need to be broken down into small, achievable parts. If you can, mark yourself against these milestones.

Listen to the feedback around you. Don’t mistake a negative outcome for failure. Each message is trying to tell you something. The only thing you need to be careful about is not to mistake noise for feedback. By noise, I mean messages such as :

• I told you so
• You don’t have it in you to succeed
• Maybe you should give up on your dreams and do something else

To be able to reach your goals, feedback must be constructive. And if feedback is not constructive, find a way to do that or force people into giving you feedback that can help. Questions such as – what would you have done, how can I make this better usually help.

Summary: Thoughts to Reach your Goals

In summary, these tips help you reassess yourself at each opportunity. A goal is a journey in constant motion. It cannot be a one-stop destination. Goals need to be constantly refined and modified as circumstances change.

You can regain control of your goals and achieve your dreams if you are committed to them. Don’t let situations bog you down, you can turn things around if you’re focussed enough.