Barriers to Goal Setting and Planning

Why is it that so many people set goals for themselves and neve follow throuh with the goals? New Year’s Day is often spent planning new goals for the new year. The rest of the year is spent in wishing the goal has been achieved. That’s the problem; wishing never made a goal happen especially if the goal was not attainable in the first place.

One of the major barriers to goal setting and planning is that we often set unattainable goals. We set the goal of losing fifty pounds in six months. We are planning to achieve the goal by starving ourself and never eating bad food or sweets again. We will start the diet as soon as we finish our wonderful New Year’s Feast. Then we have to eat everything in sight so that we get rid of all of the bad for us food. We can’t waste all of the good food anyway. Well, the diet can start on Monday. Why do diets always start on Monday and end by Saturday?

Setting a small goal would be so much better and even attainable. A better goal would be to give up the high calorie coffee you drink every morning. Change the drink to a lower calorie one. Treat yourself to the higher calorie drink once a week. This new goal is attainable and will more than likely result in some weight loss.

Another barrier to goal setting and planning is that certain goals are simply not realistic. If your wife complains constantly about your working late all the time, you might try to pacify her with the goal of coming home from work every day on time. Your goal is to never work late again. Even if you work for yourself, this is more than likely not realistic. At work unexpected events happen all of the time. That is the nature of the beast. If you don’t work for yourself, your boss can and probably will make you late at least once a week if not more. If you have a deadline that you must meet, your goal of leaving work on time every day is definitely not realistic. A better goal would be to try your best to be at home on time at least three times a week.

Barriers to goal setting and planning often occur because your goal has no real timeframe. If you set the goal to workout every day of the week so that you can get healthy and lose weight, you must have a time frame. When are you going to start? What will you do if other commitments interfer? Are you going to workout at home or in the gym? You have to make actual plans so that your goal has a timeframe. Another good way to make sure this goal comes to fruition is to choose a buddy as part of your goal. Talk to your buddy, come up with a timeframe, and get to work. Make the goal attainable by making sure that your goal has a time limit. I will start exercising today. Putting it off just makes the goal further and further away until you forget it.

Setting and planning goals isn’t really that difficult. There are barriers but your can circumvent them with the proper planning and a can do attitude.

Copyright 2007 Janice D. Sterling - All Rights Reserved

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