Why Goals Fail: 10 Tips for Success

If you’re reading this post, you’re probably someone who is serious about elevating their goal-setting game. But I’m almost certain that the title of this blog post made some people roll their eyes. Even I thought, “Do we really need another article on goal-setting?” Yes, I think so.

One of our main goals at Brivia is to optimize human potential and eliminate unnecessary suffering. Unfortunately, even with all that we know about goal setting, many people continue to struggle with, lose focus on, or fail to reach the goals they set for themselves.

The goal of this post is to minimize or even eliminate the unnecessary stress, failure, and subsequent suffering around the setting and achieving of important goals.

Why Most Goals Fail

I have spent almost three decades helping an incredibly diverse group of people set and achieve important personal and professional goals. My work with teenagers, gang members, prisoners, teachers, surgeons, judges, CEOs and commanding officers in the military has illuminated ten signs that determine whether, and to what degree, we will fail or succeed at achieving the goals we set for ourselves.

Following are ten reasons why goals fail and verified tips for turning that failure into success when setting and achieving important goals.

1. The Goal is Not Important or Meaningful

It has been my experience that this is the number one reason why most personal goals fail. When I introduce it in conversation, it is often received by multiple expressions of “of course” and “no kidding” — it sounds like common sense. This might seem straightforward, but all too often people get caught up in what others say is or isn’t important, or they place their energies and efforts into what they think they should do instead of what they want to do.

Tackling this first reason why goals fail deserves a real, honest gut-check. I regularly ask people to think about a personal goal they are struggling with. Why did you set this goal for yourself? Be honest. Often the goals we struggle with have been motivated by an external source. This can be a traditional belief, something read in a self-help book or, something the people around us are prioritizing. Maybe our goal was influenced by a person we admire, possibly someone we are in a relationship with, who said, “You should do this” or “You should change that.”

Effective goals must have meaning to the person setting them and maintain a direct connection to their own needs and values. It’s also helpful that the goal being set is aligned with other goals that are important to them. Goals and the process of working toward them must be meaningful to the people setting the goals, full stop.

The following questions offer insight into the meaning your goal holds for you:

1. What do I want or am I hoping for by setting and accomplishing this goal? How will it be helpful for me?
2. Why is this goal important to me? What values do I hold that are aligned with this goal?
3. What need or needs will I be fulfilling by successfully reaching this goal?
4. Does this goal align with or support other goals I have for myself?

If you can identify your core needs, values, and additional goals for this important objective, the goal will have meaning for you. If you come up short or are unclear on the answers to the above questions, there’s a good chance that there is an external source or person that is motivating this goal. External sources have less potency than our own core needs and values.

Objectives that are motivated by others are simply less meaningful, and therefore less important and less motivating. Most important goals take effort to reach, which is why when things get tough, we ask ourselves two questions:

1. Why am I doing this?
2. Why am I still doing this?

If we can’t connect with the core purpose for the goal, our drive inevitably dissipates and eventually we fail to reach the target. All goals, especially the tough ones, are achieved when they hold meaning for the person working toward them.

2. The Goal is Unnecessarily Delayed

There’s a reason why the saying, “Tomorrow never comes” is so popular. We’ve all put things off until tomorrow. But soon enough we realize that tomorrow never comes. You may be telling yourself that you’re not ready. If you wait until you “feel ready” you may never start! When it comes to important things, we never truly feel fully ready — hesitation and overthinking can let doubt or distraction creep in. Doubt and distraction create uncertainty and interfere with clarity. This will inevitably compromise your focus, your confidence, and your potential to succeed. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Get started now!

3. The Goal is Defined by Its Absence

All too often we set goals to curtail or eliminate something (a behaviour, action, or interaction) that is not ideal. We choose as our goal something we don’t like and want to change, such as eating fewer salty snacks, quitting smoking, drinking less wine, or curbing nail-biting. However, setting a goal to stop an action or behaviour often leads to replacing that behaviour with something else that’s just as unhelpful.

We may stop eating salty snacks, but just end up replacing them with other processed foods. Or we may be drinking less wine, but have simply switched it out for sugary drinks instead.

When we set goals that are defined by the absence of behaviour we can easily end up replacing them with other unhealthy behaviours. Instead, we should aim to establish goals as something we add to, rather than remove from, our lives. For example:

• I will eat fruits and vegetables twice a day during the week.
• I will go to the gym three days a week.
• I will make two positive comments for every negative comment I make.
• I will reconnect again with friends and colleagues at work.

Defining a goal as the presence rather than the absence of something ensures movement toward something positive. It also gives us something visible and notable to strive for. It’s tough to strive for something that is absent (we can’t see or measure) versus something that is present, tangible, and achievable.

4. The Goal Hasn’t Been Written Down

The difference between a goal being reached or remaining a nice thought has to do with whether it’s recorded. Writing down goals makes the thought more concrete, and this simple action initiates momentum toward the first and subsequent steps toward reaching those goals.

Simply putting pen to paper can be the difference between whether a goal is perceived or achieved. I often suggest that people find a special notebook or folder to record or store their goals. Writing goals down on a napkin, on scrap paper, or in an already busy notebook can decrease how special and important your goal is. Instead, treat it seriously.

5. The Goal is Not Measureable

It’s not uncommon for important goals to be very ambitious. But setting goals that are too big can be a barrier to accomplishing them successfully. It is important to break down and divide goals into bite-sized pieces. Breaking them down makes the tasks more feasible and easier to achieve. Making them concrete and measureable is helpful so that progress can be attained and measured.

Small and specific tasks make larger goals feel more realistic and achievable. For example, if your goals is “Connect more with colleagues at work,” you might break it down into smaller objectives like this:

1. Make a list of the colleagues you want to connect with
2. Choose one person and reflect on why you want to connect with them
3. Make an outline of what you want to talk about
4. Send them a personalized e-mail that states your desire to reconnect
5. Set a coffee or lunch date to reconnect Breaking a goal down into its parts can make it more manageable. I like to use the analogy of a very long ladder: If you look up and focus only on getting to the top rung, it can be too daunting to attempt. However, if you concentrate on one rung at a time, you’ll be at the top of the ladder before you know it.

6. The Goal is Unrealistic

First off, it’s important to note that many people confuse realistic with achievable and vice versa. They are not the same thing. Realistic goals are those you have the time, energy, and resources to reach. Without these requirements, there is a good chance that the goal is not realistic. This is why creating small and specific steps is the first step toward making a goal more realistic.

When you consider your goal and each of its steps, ask yourself: Do I have the time to do this? Do I have the energy? Do I have the resources? If the answer is “no” or “maybe,” consider an adjustment of the goal or its component parts so that your answers are “yes” and it will be far more likely that you will reach your target.

7. The Goal is Unachievable

Achievable is not the same as realistic. The only way you can assess a goal’s achievability is by considering whether it, or a similar task, has been accomplished in the past. If not, it is difficult to know with any certainty whether the goal is achievable.

If your goal is to reconnect with colleagues more often, you might realize that you used to chat on the phone or go for lunch with them regularly, but your priorities have shifted with your workload. Staying in touch with colleagues gives you meaning, and you feel its absence in your life. But you know you’ve done it before so you can work to do it again!

If your goal is to travel out of the country and you’ve never travelled outside your neighbourhood, you may want to start with a small trip to a nearby city and work from there. Set yourself up for success by ensuring that your goal and the steps within it are achievable.

8. The Goal Isn’t Time Specific

Just as writing down goals is critical for success, so too is placing time limits on the steps and tasks required to achieve your goals. Specific timelines enhance focus on and create positive tension with each task. Time-specific tasks provide a concrete sign that something has been or needs to be accomplished.

All too often, goals fail because of an unidentified timeframe. “Sometime next week or next month” is not specific enough. Let’s go back to the goal of reconnecting with colleagues more at work. Timelines can be set around the specific tasks toward achieving this goal, for instance:

1. Make a list of the colleagues you want to connect with (tomorrow evening by 9:00 p.m.)
2. Choose one person and reflect on why you want to connect with them (Saturday afternoon before going to the 7:00 p.m. movie)
3. Make an outline of what you want to talk about (Sunday evening before bed)
4. Send them a personalized e-mail that states your desire to reconnect (Monday before lunch at 12:30 p.m.)
5. Set a coffee or lunch date to reconnect (settle on a date by the end of the day on Wednesday) When working with colleagues or coaching clients, I sometimes create a little tension around timelines. When I’m asked to help set or support goals, I’ll ask for each step in concrete and time-limited terms: “When will that be done? When exactly?” If they respond with, “In May” I’ll counter with, “When in May? Which week? Which day? Which time on that day?” Until we get as specific as possible, I don’t let it go. The timeline is a crucial component to success.

9. The Goal Hasn’t Been Shared with Others

The truth is, the more people we share our goals with, the more likely we will stick to the plan. While most goal-setting approaches encourage people to share with at least one supportive person, I suggest three or more. Sharing your plan with more people increases our likelihood of follow-through and encourages us to be accountable to both our plan and the people we shared it with.

An important note here is that the people you share your goals with must be supportive, not negative, pessimistic, or overly critical. If you have people in your life who are nay-sayers, especially around your goals and accomplishments, their negativity can work against your efforts to be successful.

In addition to sharing your goals with supportive people in your life, I urge you to let them know how they can be the most helpful to you, whether that is with regular check-ins, encouragement, or specified types of support for you.

10. No Additional Incentives Are Set

Many people think that the goal itself should be the incentive. It is, however, establishing an additional incentive can increase your motivation and enhance your capacity for success. The reason we often fail at achieving important goals, even when they are defined and developed effectively, is because they are hard to achieve. An incentive or reward can be the necessary encouragement we need to help us reach our target.

Set an incentive for yourself to celebrate or do something fun, relaxing, or meaningful when you reach your goal. I would also encourage you to consider setting smaller incentives attached to the smaller steps in your plan. And when you enlist the support of others to celebrate with you, they can encourage and applaud your efforts to stay on track.

A Simple Checklist

These tips work. I’ve seen them work in my experience with an exceptionally diverse group of humans and I continue to use them in my own personal and professional goals. When I or the people I support do struggle or get stuck, it’s because we have inadvertently failed to see one of these ten signs.

To help you make use of these tips and stay on track, I’ve developed the Successful Goals Checklist. If you’re interested in using this simple tool, you can find it HERE.

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Stephen de Groot is President and Co-Founder of Brivia.

He is author of Responsive Leadership (Sage Publication, 2016) and Chief Architect of The CORE Algorithm: A Dynamic Framework for Optimizing Human Potential, Performance and Perseverance.

Learn more about Stephen de Groot and his work.