It’s coming into that time of year when everyone starts talking about planning and goal setting for the next year. Going hand in hand with this is the review process – what worked and what didn’t and most importantly whether you hit the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the year.
If you need practical tips on reaching your goals, then make sure that you check out this article. But today I wanted talk about what happens when we set goals but don’t achieve them.
This can have a huge impact on our mindset and often results in unhelpful inner thoughts of not being good enough, feeling like a failure or being hard on ourselves for not putting in enough effort.
And the result of this can be a downward spiral of comparisonitis, negative thoughts and even giving up on our goals altogether. I know these feelings all too well.
I recently was at a networking event and the person I was talking to told me she’d smashed every goal she set in a quarter of the time she’d given herself. I immediately went into feeling like a failure, when I should’ve questioned whether her goals were big enough or hairy enough!
So, instead of taking this unhelpful path of negative self-talk, I’d love for you to look at not hitting your goals from a different perspective. One that will help you keep achieving and keep you motivated into the new year.
Understand the values behind your goals
You say to yourself that you want to earn $X so that you can take your family on a holiday. So, spending quality time with your family is important to you.
You didn’t earn $X so didn’t go on the holiday. Should you really consider this a failure? Perhaps you were present with your family when they needed you. Maybe a family member had a health issue that took your time and attention away from your business. So, you were living in alignment with your values which is far more precious than earning $X!
What got added that wasn’t there in the first place?
What did you achieve during the year that wasn’t planned for when you sat down to write out your goals? Perhaps you moved house unexpectedly (which requires a whole heap of brain space!) or you were unwell or burnt out. Whilst not excuses, these things can impact on our ability to spend time on our goals.
Look for the learnings
What are all the steps you needed to take to reach your goal? Did they go to plan and were you able to execute them all? Sometimes we forget about the smaller steps of action that we need to take to reach the big goal. So, reviewing what didn’t happen is as important as reviewing the goal itself.
Not achieving a goal isn’t the end of the world. By changing your thoughts around this you can implement positive results and still achieve great results.
If you’re looking for a way to increase the likelihood of reaching your goals, then The Money Map will help you set realistic goals in line with your values and time. Book a call and let’s chat to see if this is right for you.