Common challenges people face when working towards goals

When you are trying to work towards your goals you should expect that challenges will come your way. Having this expectation allows you to be more prepared and able to adapt when needed. So what are the common challenges people face when trying to achieve their goals? Here’s the top 5 challenges you can expect to face.

1.    Limited Resources: Many people struggle to reach their goals due to limited resources. This could be lack of time, money, or support. The interesting thing with limited resources is that it can impact your ability to achieve goals even if it’s only a perception you have. For example: people often say ‘I don’t have the time’ when they’ve just spent an hour on social media or window shopping. Others say ‘I don’t have the money’ but they aren’t focussing on how to bring more money in and make the goals possible but rather on their lack. Facebook Marketplace, eBay, new streams of income are all possible for the goals that we want…including spending less on coffee, chocolate, unused subscriptions or free versions of software we like so that we can make our goals happen.

2. Procrastination: Putting things off is one of the biggest challenges people face when trying to reach their goals. Finding motivation and staying on task can be difficult, but it is necessary for success. It’s important to identify why you are procrastinating so that you can break through this. I talk about it on this episode of my podcast.

3.    Fear of Failure:  No one likes feeling like a failure. If you fear that more than not achieving your goals it will drive you to do nothing (procrastinate or avoid completely). When you change your mindset to thinking about failing forward and learning on the journey to your goals fear starts to dissolve.

4. Unclear Goals: Without a clear goal, it can be difficult to stay on track and make progress. It is important to set SMART goals in order to stay motivated. These are goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time framed. Most people’s goals look like this: I want to lose 10kg by Easter by working out each day. These kinds of goals are not specific enough, do not give you a process to follow and will create vague motivation not deep, intrinsic desire to achieve.

5.    Distractions: With so many distractions in the modern world, it can be hard to stay focused on what is important. It is important to limit distractions in order to move closer to achieving goals, this includes turning off notifications, reminding yourself that you are here and now and focussing on one task, your thoughts of other tasks can come up later, creating a distracting free space where you aren’t compelled to scroll social media, watch television or answer your phone at the same time.

6.    An unsupportive environment. When you are trying to achieve your goals who you have around you is so important, if you look at the people who you surround yourself with are they encouraging you to succeed, helping you when your motivation wanes or are they saying ‘don’t change a thing’? Many people unintentionally become unsupportive because they don’t place the same value on what you are trying to achieve and they think that preventing you from following through on your goals is loving and supporting you however unless your goals are harming you they don’t need to be concerned. You should be concerned about how you will achieve your goals while you aren’t surrounded by people who get what you are doing. If you can resonate with this then it’s time to find people chasing goals like yours.

There are many things that get in peoples way when it comes to achieving their goals, these are the top 6 common challenges all individuals face. When you are aware of them you can then take steps to eliminate these challenges. If you’d like someone in your corner to help you achieve your goals book a call below and we can have a chat.

Now that you are aware of your challenges start breaking through them.