I don’t know about you, but I’m not good at setting and achieving my goals. I wish I was, I wish I was that person who is so determined that I am able to overcome and beat the odds and accomplish everything I set out to do. But I’m not.
Queen of Inspiration Who Lacks Motivation
I used to describe myself as the “Queen of Inspiration, who lacks motivation”. What I meant by this was that I am constantly inspired to do things, just not motivated to keep at them. I still struggle with this, whether it’s diet / exercise, whether it’s hobbies, whatever.
I added this post to Self Discovery, because I want to learn why this is. I want to learn more about how I think, and how that impacts this skill-set, and finally, what to do about it. Some people may think that I’m lazy, but I’m not actually. I am actually busy with something or another most of the time. Maybe it’s that I’m too busy? No, probably not.
Then what is it?
In my post on using a To-Do-List, I mentioned that I started to feel overwhelmed by the amount of things on the list, which ultimately made me kind of shut down and not do anything.
An article in Psychology Today says that a fear of failure, not enough time management and what other people think or say affect our ability to set and achieve goals.
For me, I can see that. I think the fear of failure is the biggest factor for me though. If I don’t have the confidence that I will succeed, sometimes I just won’t try. Talk about a hypocrite. I tell my kid all the time that he can’t expect to be good at something when he’s just learning it and then I get scared off of achieving things because I’m not fantastic in the first go.
That same article says that you should offer yourself rewards throughout the process. The goal achievement process, depending on the goal, can be a long haul, and you can stay more motivated to keep working if there are some instant gratification style rewards at intervals along the way. I don’t generally do this, maybe I should?
I also think that maybe my goals are too big. Rather than focus on, “I’m going to save $500.00” as a starting point, I will have the goal of “I’m going to be completely debt free and have savings”. You can see the difference between the two, one is manageable in a reasonable timeframe and the other is huge. I can see that being a roadblock especially when you’re just starting the goal setting process.
I listened to an Audio Book called “The Little Black Book of Workout Motivation” By Michael Matthews awhile back. One lesson I took from that book was the idea of not giving up on yourself. So let’s say you decide that you want to start exercising more, and the first few days you’re on track and it all goes well, then you miss a day, which turns into two, and then three. He suggests that if you need to start smaller then do it. So if you are struggling with doing a full work out every day, start with just one push up. Just one single push up…..after a month you will have done 30 push ups, which will start a change, and it will prove to you that you can show up for yourself. He was not saying that you should spend 30 days doing just one pushup a day, I was paraphrasing. The point was more about showing up for yourself and building a habit, and starting with even 5 mins a day then working up from there.
I think I start too big, which is setting myself up for failure, I don’t manage my time to ensure that I’ve included working toward my goals into my daily routine and I kind of “fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” rather than focus on organization. All of these components factor into my, let’s say, rather than failure, lack of success in goal setting and achievement.
It seems like all the individual factors that I am currently exploring in my other posts are factors in my goal mis-achievements. I can’t wait to see where I am in a year’s time if I’m able to sort out all these other areas!
Do you set goals? Do you achieve your goals? If so, do you have strategies that you use and find helpful? Share your process with me!
XO Sabrina
