Why You’ll Never Actually Achieve Your Goals

Are you just not motivated enough to start?

Do you feel like you can’t follow through on your goals?

We spend so much time and energy believing that we can’t, it’s no wonder that hardly any of us will ever actually achieve our goals.

It’s sad to think that so many ideas and dreams ever make it past the mind, or later past the plans and goals we set. Even fewer make it past getting started.

*pours out a drink for our fallen dreams*

So, how do you ensure that you actually achieve your goals?

That your dreams don’t end up being your biggest regret later in life?

Is it goal setting and planning that makes it happen? Maybe you’ve tried that, even made sure they were S.M.A.R.T. goals like you were told, but you still can’t reach your goals.

What about letting go of your fears and taking action? Does that determine whether or not you’ll achieve your goals?

There’s no denying that all of this helps, but the most important ingredient for achieving your goals is your ability to believe in yourself. Your ability to flip the script on all your insecurities and obstacles that come your way, to just have confidence.

This confidence doesn’t have to be blind and unwavering either, it just needs to be present. Even the slightest bit of a confidence boost can have a major impact.

To be able to look at your hot mess of a life, your “brokenness,” your fears, and every deep-seated reason and shallow excuses that you think you can’t, and conclude, “ACTUALLY, I can.”

It’s looking compassionately at your own “ish” and seeing the beauty, the strength, the potential, and dare I even say the purpose in it all. To choose to see worthiness where others may see nothing of value, to embrace who you are on the inside, and to be brave enough to show what you’ve been hiding all your life, to do what some might think is impossible and to above all just be yourself.

To finally say “NO, you are wrong, you don’t know me, or what I can do,” to every single memory, experience, belief, and hater that seeks to make you feel inadequate, inexperienced, and inconsequential. Because none of those words describe you.

No matter what’s happened to you, what anyone has ever said to you, your situation or circumstances, YOU are the reason WHY you will achieve your goals. And consequently, YOU are also the main reason you can’t achieve your goals.

**This is Part 4, of a 6-Part Series on How to Actually Achieve Your Goals.**

#GoalSlayerSeries breaks down the honest unfiltered truth about what it really takes to achieve your goals. Each post explores one major mindset shift that you need to make in order to become a Goal Slayer (aka someone who achieves their goals without apology or excuse).

Let’s keep pushing, by exploring the main reason you’ll never achieve your goals and the reason you will despite everything else. Spoiler alert, it’s the same reason.

Why You Can’t Achieve Your Goals

You think you’re so special. That you’re the first person in the history of the world who has had a job, kids, a busy life, some bad experiences, and maybe dealt a shit hand in life.

News flash (and I say this with as much love as tough love can have), this doesn’t make you special.

You’re already thinking about it because I was when I was where you are now. But “I can’t do this, I don’t know how I have student loans that need paying… that’s not possible…“ and on and on I went.

Maybe for you, it’s “My kids come first, they take all my time, I can’t.” Or perhaps, “My full-time job zaps my energy, I come home too exhausted for anything else.”

Or one that most of us can relate to, “I’m just too busy and too tired to get started.”

Not deep and dark enough? Okay, what about, “when I was a kid my family laughed at me when I said I wanted to be a lawyer.”

Okay well you know what I’ve been told “I wish you were never born, you ruined my life, you’ll never be anything or be anyone” and some unrepeatable phrases all by someone who should have loved me the most.

And that’s the thing, someone can always out-sob story you. There will always be someone who is “more special” than you WHO has actually taken action and slayed the heck out of their goals anyway. If you want to play this game, the very fact that you have the internet and can read this post in the first place probably means you won’t win.

So, what’s your excuse? If you’re asking me, it’s that you’re making excuses.

“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.” – Jordan Belfort

You’re ish, your sob-story, your less-than-ideal circumstances, your challenges, your childhood, your blah blah, cry me a river, the bullshit excuse does not disqualify you from achieving your goals.

All of this is NOT why you can’t achieve your goals.

It actually QUALIFIES you, but only if you let it, here’s how.

#1. From Struggle to Strength

Your reasons why you can’t achieve your goals are not what makes you special. We all have our own stuff to deal with and life (despite how it may look on the outside or on social media) isn’t perfect for anyone.

What makes you special is who you are, deep down beneath the drama and despite your struggle. You are completely unique, a one of a kind edition. There is no one who has lived what you have lived, survived what you have, or has the dreams that you have. Nobody!

You need to believe that, to be able to see the strength you’ve gained from your struggles. Maybe for you, that strength is your boss level time management skills that help you manage your busy household. Or perhaps how you’ve learned to cope with your depression or mental illness.

You’ve struggled and you’ve had success. You’re here! You have the opportunity to use your strength to achieve even more.

It’s all strength, not all struggle if you change your perspective:

It Gives You Something to Fight For: Do you have debt? Are you in a job you hate? Are you a parent? You have something to fight for. Whether that’s to get to a better life for you and your family or to finally be in a career you’ve always dreamt of. Even if it’s being able to make more money doing what you love to pay your debt. All of this is something to fight for.
Reminds You that You Are Strong: Have you survived “more than most”? Have you faced great obstacles and challenges in your past? Listen, even working two jobs and graduating college is a great accomplishment. Celebrate it, remember it, and let it give you the confidence you need to face your next challenge.

You’re the only you. You’ve survived all your ish and it can strengthen you if you let it.

What makes you strong? What gives you strength?

“Obstacles can’t stop you. Problems can’t stop you. Most of all, other people can’t stop you. Only you can stop you.” — Jeffrey Gitomer

#2. From Comparison to Compassion

When we look at people who are living their dreams and achieving their goals it can seem like they’ve got it all figured out. Like their lives are pretty perfect, that “oh things must just be easier for them.” They must be so lucky, right? But it isn’t true!

“Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle, or your middle to someone else’s end. Don’t compare the start of your second quarter of life to someone else’s third quarter.” ― Tim Hiller

I’m not sure if you think that about me, but I am telling you right now I spend PLENTY of time crying, freaking out, losing my shit, breaking out because things go wrong, anxious as hell, and wondering if I can even do this. I’m a mess! You might not see it, but I am.

Social media really does not help with our comparison complex. We have a front-row seat to the best moments in everyone’s life and we can feel inadequate.

We think:

She’s so far ahead.
I’ll never be as good as her.
He’s already doing what I want to do.
Her blog or business is so perfect.
Why would anyone want to hear from me?
What could I possibly have to offer?

Part of owning your ish, and embracing who you are requires you to have compassion for yourself, your story, and what only you can do.

The cure for the comparison complex is loving yourself, to love everything about you that makes you feel less-than and insecure AF, to reconcile with those “I can’t.”

And yeah, that sounds like a tall order especially if you’re in a dark place right now. But start by spending less time looking at everyone’s “perfect “life and start appreciating your own hot mess. There’s got to be something about you and your life you love. Focus on that.

How can you show yourself a little compassion today?

#3. From Self-Sabotage to Self-Success

Every time you say you can’t and choose inaction you are undercutting your confidence. You are sabotaging yourself before you can even get started. You are pulling the plug on positive thoughts before they can even form.

You’re hitting the escape button, by running to something else you focus on anything other than achieving the goal you want so badly.

“I can’t do it, I’m too tired and too busy.”

And if this is a pattern for you, then I would ask you if you think so little of yourself that you can’t handle a little thing like a scheduling challenge?

Maybe you don’t want it badly enough, or maybe you don’t love yourself enough to give yourself what you’ve wanted all this time.

Anyone who wants something badly enough will not let being tired and busy stop them.

Trust me, ain’t nobody going to give it to you. You have to grab hold of your success by taking action. You determine your success, only you can spend the time, energy, and in some cases the money to achieve your goals.

Part of owning your ish is owning that you are in control, and once you believe that, you’ll realize that the choice has always been yours. To act or to stay in the waiting room of your life.

What choice can you make for yourself today?

#4. From Without to Within

We’re always searching for answers, for more knowledge, more money, more time, more power, more something. So no wonder that when we have a dream we continue to look outwards.

Always asking, who can help me? What’s the right or best way to do this? How can I do this successfully?

You discover one solution, then another, and another. Always chasing shiny objects.

You take a course, read one self-help book, and before you know you’ve consumed all there is out there and you’re still not full. You still feel empty, you’re still hungry for more.

Why is that?

You’re searching for the secret sauce. That magical formula and quick solution to help you achieve your goal. And you will never find it out there because it’s been within you the entire time.

You are the secret sauce. You are what’s special, you are the magical formula that will help you achieve your goals. Your hot mess of a life, your “limitations,” and experiences are what make you uniquely special to achieve your goals. They’re YOUR goals after all.

No one knows what you know, no one has to offer what you do, no one has the motivations you do.

You don’t need to be like anyone else or do it like someone else, you need to be like you and do it only like you know-how.

What’s your secret sauce?

#5. From I Can’t to I Can

I am no stranger to saying that I can’t, I said I can’t for years all while hitting the snooze button on my own goals and dreams.

But, the more I listened to my inner voice, spent time focused on myself, learning about what excited me, made me feel alive, the more I started to believe maybe I could do this, and that seed grew into I can.

The longer I looked with honest eyes at my life and the choices I’d made, the more I realized that I was deeply unhappy with where I was in life, that I wanted to be able to look myself in the eyes and be proud more than I needed to “be successful” in the eyes of others (my family included).

I realized that I could not, cannot, stay on the path I was on.

I cannot live with the prospect of spending 30+ years working in an industry I wasn’t 100% into. There’s no way I could sleep knowing that I’d have to wait until I was like 70 years old to be free to do what I wanted. I could not stomach the thought of waking up 5 days a week to commute in heavily stressful traffic to a job I was less than thrilled about.

My true self was NOT okay with these conditions.

Maybe for you, your inner self isn’t okay with not having time for yourself, feeling tired and worn down. Perhaps, you feel unappreciated and unfulfilled in your own lives and careers.

Can you stay on the path you’re on?

These are the emotions and feelings that we ignore, suppress, and deny every time we hit escape on our dreams.

Continuing like nothing is bothering you is what you really cannot do and I hope you realize that before you meet your breaking point. Where you’re having a panic attack at work or in the middle of traffic, where you’re snapping at your kids or spouse, where you’re losing your shit because you CANNOT do this anymore. When that happens your inner voice is screaming at you to pay attention!

So, what can’t you do?

And in comparison, doesn’t finding the time and energy to focus on yourself sound much more doable?

Or ya know, you can just continue silencing your inner voice with Netflix and chips so you can manage to keep on keeping on until you crack.

“At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets.” — Steve Maraboli #quotestoliveby #qotd #success

Why You Can Achieve Your Goals

Stop looking for the nearest exit and stop running to every out you can think of.

Obstacles are not the reason why you can’t achieve your goals.

Circumstances, situations, your past, your present, or any variant in between, aren’t stopping you from achieving your goals either.

I’m sorry boo, but you are why you’ll never achieve your goals.

It’s easy to blame everything but yourself, but the only thing you can control is yourself.

You need to learn how to flip a negative into a positive, to take your mind and your actions, from:

Struggle to Strength
Comparison to Compassion
Self-Sabotage to Self-Success
Without to Within
I Can’t to I Can

Everything in your life is perspective, you will either be the reason you do or the reason you don’t.

Why you can, or why you can’t achieve your goals.

It’s entirely up to you.

So, what will it be? What can you achieve?

Let's talk about why you can't actually accomplish your goals. Spoiler alert, it's probably not what you think it is. #goalslayerseries #goalsetting #goals

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Last Updated on July 26, 2024

Why You’ll Never Actually Achieve Your Goals

Table of Contents:

**This is Part 4, of a 6-Part Series on How to Actually Achieve Your Goals.**

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