Set Goals, And Yet Not Successful?

Many people set goals for themselves but find it hard to achieve anything. Even simple to do lists for the day don’t get ticked off as often as they would like!

It is this lack of focus that is stopping many people from achieving success.

Common problem — people know they should be doing something productive to help themselves but they don’t do it. They get distracted too easily.

So for example, people don’t want to wait and build a business online, they want to succeed within the next 36 hours– in reality this does not happen.

The question is, how can we focus more?

I think you’ve already knew the answer — by setting out specific goals and having a clear vision of the outcome that we want to accomplish, and once we know why we are doing something, we will find it easier to stick to.

For example you want to make $500,000 this year from the internet. Therefore you know that every minute you spend at the computer has to be productive. Why? Because the more productive you are, the closer you will be to getting to you goal of making $500,000 this year.

Obviously, you know what you need to do. If you do get distracted you know you have the choice of continuing with the activity that is distracting you or going back to being productive and working towards your goal.

The trick is, in order to stay focused, you need sheer determination. These two go hand in hand because focus without determination is not going to let you move forward and determination without focus means you don’t have a direction to move towards. Do you see the connection now?

You must be determined to succeed. Many people begin very determined and then start to make excuses. Hey, focus!

Remember success can take time. Overnight success is a… well, a rarity. Research shows that you need to do something for 28 days (or is it 21?) in a row before it becomes a habit. So begin to work at being successful and keep doing it.

Keep the long term goal in mind for everything that you do. It’s very easy to get distracted in the short term but this distraction — watching TV, going for a drink, can have affects that reaches the long term goal.

By focusing on the long term goal, your determination will come in.

Does this mean that you can’t watch TV, go for drinks with friends or do other non-productive things? Of course not.

But there is a time for everything. Be as productive as you can with the time you have in a day but allow yourself the down time as well to enjoy yourself and relax. Get back on the horse after that and achieve the next milestone.

But sometimes, it’s not because lack of determination — it’s limiting beliefs.

Limiting beliefs are beliefs that you can’t do it, you can’t make a change, you will fail, only other people succeed and so on. The fact is, we have so many limiting beliefs and many people have an inner critic that tells them they can’t do things.

So before a person wanted to start, he has already loses his confident.

Here are more examples of what someone might think or say to himself if he wanted to quit his job to start a business:

* I might as well stay in my job, as it’s not so bad
* If my business fails, I will lose everything
* I can’t succeed online — it’s all a scam
* What if I try something and I don’t succeed… people will laugh at me
* I don’t have time to do it

The last excuse is probably the most often use and the most preposterous — however bear in mind that we ALL only have 24 hours in a day. Believe it or not, even the most successful people in the world only have the same amount of time.  It’s just how we use those hours that’s important.

So what happens is, you listen to this critic and never take action. Many people feel if they don’t try something then they can’t fail — yup, “weird” logic but people actually think unconsciously like this.

Stop and listen to yourself and see if you can recognize your “inner critic”, hear what it is saying to you. Many of us have one and it can really stop us succeeding! Take a few minutes and complete this simple exercise.

As yourself, “What’s my excuse?”

Write down all the “excuses” you make for not doing something.

Now go back to your list and write out fully why what you wrote above is actually a limiting believe — try to really prove why it is true. Be honest.

When you really examined these thoughts that you had, you will realize that they were excuses you were making.

So the next time you stop yourself from doing something, pause and take the time to examine your thoughts. Is the reality really like that or is it just your inner critic talking?

The secret to stop your inner critic — make yourself bigger than your excuses.

Written by Patric Chan