Avoid these 5 common pitfalls when working on your goals

We always tend to stick with one plan which eventually doesn’t happen. You might have felt the strange feeling in your stomach when things don’t go according to you. How many times have you structured your day to work on your goals? Every time you decide something but that doesn’t fit your schedule and you try to change them. Because we are organized to work on the process which will lead to the outcome, but we never plan what we should avoid within that process.

It is obvious that you can’t straight away plan your goals in your first attempt, you have to consider the downfall in the process and the negative impact that may ruin your career. Planning is an essential but smart way is to look at things that we need to avoid because unnecessary things consume our time.

Let’s look 5 common pitfalls that you should avoid when working on your goals:

1. Setting someone else’s goal

The people around us, social media, friends, and family all are the influencers from which we get the idea of what we have to do in life. Most of the time people pursue what their friends or siblings are doing or maybe their own family business just to be on the safer side. We are lured by the final outcome of the process and are not ready to dive into it. Often we see successful people like film stars, singers, entrepreneurs, artists and are tempted by their lifestyle, without even knowing our interest we blindly follow their path to become rich. Why does it happen?

Because mostly we live with the idea of final outcome after reaching there, we never see the sacrifice and efforts it requires to reach that level. When we finally work we realize that this is not what we want or love to do and end up regretting. So avoid living someone else’s dream and find your own passion that will drive you towards success

2. Aiming too high

It’s good to be hungry for your goals and wanting to eat the whole cake, but most of the time they are the biggest reason for your downfalls in the task. Thinking big is not a problem but thinking wrong is a trap where most people are stuck. Finding the right goals can be challenging and requires patience, but everyone wants to surpass the speed of light right?

Stretching yourself beyond your limits without proper actions will lead you nowhere and you will always keep complaining about it. Set a hypothetical scale for your goals. Say, on the scale of 1 to 10 and number up your most important task which is needed to complete even though if it is trivial, rate them on that scale according to your limit and don’t be in rush trying to attain the extremity. For instance, if you are building a product, note the necessary and small steps that are required.

1. Find the common problem most people are facing.
2. Decide an apt and affordable solution.
3. Work on your product and invest your time here.
4. Do surveys and ask opinions of common people.
5. Try to enhance your product and make it unique.
6. Market your services.

While working on the rate your work on that scale on a regular basis and keep improving on them.

3. Thinking about the final outcome

Many people make mistakes while setting their goals, and aiming it on the basis of the final outcome is dangerous and you will end up giving in. Often you might have observed that when you don’t see the results you are disappointed in yourself and start changing your goals or some people just give up. But rather than continuously looking for an outcome, invest your energy in the work and try to give your best. Sometimes you work hard to achieve something and the output is nothing, but don’t feel bad about it for too long, it’s a good sign that you failed so that you will know what to avoid doing further.

We have this notion of doing everything without any hurdles but that is beyond reality, you will fail, you have to accept the defeat and make changes to avoid the same failure. So avoid doing just to achieve the final bliss, instead enjoy every moment of your work which will definitely reap you the fruits.

4. Managing common goals

Committing to one goal is not a cup of tea. We can also decipher this as setting too many goals. While setting a number of goals is a hindrance but if they are related to one common goal then you can easily achieve them. For instance, if you want to bring your body in shape, you will set goals to work out daily or start morning walks and jogging, so this you can consider it as one goal but along with this you also need to focus on your diet, because working out won’t lead you to your goals but balancing it with your control on diet will help you achieve them. So here you don’t have to just keep your focus on one goal, instead, you need to manage multiple things to achieve them but it doesn’t mean you will name them as your final goals. Often people are not able to balance their small goals as they see them differently. You don’t need to distinguish your goals from one another if they are all are linked to your final outcome. But you need to be aware of setting too many trivial goals just because you’re tempted to do them. You need to sacrifice something to reach the essential.

5. Not Focusing on present goals

After planning everything you will still have some problems to keep going with the flow. Why? Because you are busy thinking of your next task or your final goals or maybe modifying them rather than focusing on what’s in your hand. This leads to procrastination which is the blunder towards success, we often keep thinking about the future and that is how we perceive them. Yes, it’s good to plan about the future but not every time, sometimes you need to start the work rather than overthinking. So give energy to your present work, invest your time and attention on completing that task, write your goals in the present tense, rather than stating “I will achieve this”, make it “I am going to achieve this”. This way your focus will be more on your existing task than hypothetical activities.

"If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes."