“I create goals in my mind every night. And every day I try to live them but I end up doing the exact opposite of what I want to do, and I don’t understand why. How can I stick to the personal goals I set for myself?”
“I end up doing the exact opposite of what I want to do…”
Interesting.
First of all, make sure that these goals are actually goals you really, REALLY want. Something with high long-term value. Only those are real goals.
Everything else is just something that would be nice to have today (and may be forgotten tomorrow).
Make it a few but important goals. If you have 20 goals, you basically have no goal. Because you just can’t keep your focus on that many goals.
You can find those goals by going through a proper goal-setting exercise.
If those are real goals you have, and you still have a hard time moving towards them…
I can tell you exactly why this happens.
One word: Fear.
You most likely fear the consequences of what happens when you reach your goals.
The fear of failure goes:
“What happens if I fail? What happens when my big dream won’t come true? What if I just don’t have what it takes? How disappointed and worthless will I feel?”
And the other side, the fear of success goes:
“What happens if I succeed? How will my life change? Am I really ready for that? What new challenges will come to me? Do I really want all that?”
The problem with fear is that it’s coming from the unconscious “reptilian” brain. And that might be in conflict with our conscious goal-setting.
The moment you get aware of your fear, you have a chance to overcome it.
Another word: Beliefs.
If you set goals that are in contrast to your beliefs and your values, you will get inner resistance.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set those goals.
On the contrary.
After all, compelling goals have the power to pull you towards a better life. That’s the power of goals: they work best if you really want to make a change.
Run a Check on Your Beliefs
What you can do is to get awareness about your beliefs.
For instance complete the following sentences:
“I want to reach my goal, but _________.”
“I haven’t reached my goal, because _________.”
Fill in the blanks and you will find some interesting limiting beliefs.
This is pretty powerful stuff. So do it!
And then you can even change your beliefs, so that they don’t limit you, but support you in your goal achievement. What a concept!
The third word: Habits.
When you set new goals that pull you out of your comfort zone and need you to form new habits, or give up old habits, you will feel resistance.
That’s something we call habit gravity.
The moment you start to form a new habit, your old habits that are in contrast to your new habits will pull you back down.
For instance when your goal is to start running every morning, you might do it the first 2 days. Then your old habit of sleeping longer will show his ugly face and resist the creation of your new habit.
So you have to escape this habit gravity. And that’s done by…
The last word: Focus.
You can radically improve your goal achievement if you learn how to focus your mind on your goals.
If you’ve set a powerful goal, a goal that is representing what you deeply desire inside, then your mental focus is your tool to make this goal your reality.
“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.” ~ Stephen Covey
People think focus means to decide what to focus on. But in reality, this is not the main thing.
The main thing is to say no to all the things you could do, but which would distract you from your goal. To stay focus you need to learn to say no.
So learn stay focused on your goals and you’ve gone the next step.
http://www.myrkothum.com/reach-your-goals/
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