I know it’s a painful exercise but let’s count how many unfinished projects and un-achieved goals and dreams are haunting you? The trim still hasn’t been painted. The scrap book is still in scraps. The car you hoped to restore is still sleeping under that dusty tarp. Attempts at writing your book have resulted in something more like a pamphlet than a book. So, what’s holding you back? What’s stopping you from achieving your goals and dreams? Keep reading and discover 4 BIG reasons you aren’t reaching your goals.
1.) No (wrong) Motivation
Some of us set personal goals that would be better categorized under peer pressure than personal goals. We have plenty of friends and family members with good intentions that give us their ideas, advice, and opinions about what we should focus ourselves on. Their voices can be helpful inside a healthy process of discovery, but outside of it they can hinder us from hearing our true calling. Pressure from others can feel like internal motivation when, in reality, it is actually an internal echo of people’s external opinions and ideas. The strength of the internal-external echo is often related to how much power, influence, control or authority others have had in our lives.
When it comes to smaller projects it is ok to be admittedly be motivated by external things; making a few extra bucks, helping a friend move, babysitting your sister’s kids while she and her husband steal away for an weekend. However, if your core (long term) motivations are associated with things like money and people pleasing you’ll eventually burn out. Both (and many other motivations such as fame) are endlessly elusive and unsatisfying.
True personal and healthy internal motivation begins with God. To truly achieve our biggest goals we must personally experience God’s prompting toward it. There is an interesting relationship between God and our goals. If you look closely, you can find it in Psalm 37:4 where it says, “Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Did you catch it? The idea being presented here is that when you “delight” – have a joyful and intimate relationship with God, he will give you the desires of your heart. Some might read this as “whatever you desire – he will give you” and this would not be a terrible translation, however, I’m persuaded that it is better read/translated this way – “the desires of your heart will be placed there -given to you by God. In other words, the desires of your heart, those good things you feel compelled to set goals for and go after, originate from God and are planted inside of you! The kind of goals that we can achieve with real and lasting satisfaction are the ones that come through a living and active relationship with God. God himself, with all his power, resources, and creativity will accompany you and be the sustaining force along your journey from desire to achievement.
2.) No Milestones
Motivation is critical but so are milestones. If your dream is big enough, it will likely take a lot of time and effort to achieve it. The sheer size of it can cause us to question ourselves and God. The dream may seem enormous but if you think about it, the journey of 1,000 miles is really just 1,ooo – 1 mile journeys. Can you go one mile? Sure you can! You can’t walk 1,000 miles in a day but you can go one or two. Set mile stones and celebrate each one. Breaking your goal down into smaller – achievable short term goals is a winning strategy.
3.) No Momentum
Setting smaller goals is an important step to take but even small goals may go unmet without consistency and rhythm. Consistently working toward your God given dreams and subsequent goals will help you stay focused. Those who start and stop, run the risk of stalling out or even giving up.
I once heard the story of a man who owned a few acres of land. On the back side of the land sat a huge pile of wire that couldn’t be moved easily and would cost him a lot of money to haul away. The man loved to take daily walks around his property and so he decided to take a pare of wire snips with him each day. Day after day, when he would take his walk, he would go past the wire pile and snip off enough that he could comfortably carry on his walk. He would bring it up to the house and throw it away. Over time, through rhythm and with consistency, he was able to achieve his goal of getting rid of the pile of wire. The moral of the story – work on your dream daily.
4.) No Mentor
The fourth mistake most people make when setting out to achieve a dream and a goal is not having a mentor. A mentor is someone who can help you keep pace, stay focused, set and celebrate smaller attainable goals and ultimately be there when you arrive at achievement. Many people confuse mentor with inspiration. I’ve heard people say, “John Maxwell” is my mentor – from a distance. John Maxwell may be your inspiration and his ideas may be helpful but unless he knows your name, knows your dream, works with you to set goals and keeps you personally accountable to them, he is not your mentor.
If you’re ready to take steps toward your God-given dream and actually achieve your goals – click the contact button below. We can help!
“May he grant your hearts desires and make all your plans succeed.”
~ Psalms 24:4 ~