How to overcome obstacles and achieve your goals
It’s almost inevitable that you will come across various obstacles on your journey to achieving your goals. Here are a few tips on how to overcome these roadblocks.
The main challenges that I observed relate to our mindset and a lack of accountability.
Let’s start with MINDSET.
I think there are five mindset challenges. It’s important that you look at them as they can be the reason for you to move closer to your goals or further away from them.
Self-confidence. If we don’t believe that we have the ability to achieve our goals, then this can often turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy and we do things to sabotage ourselves and our efforts. This is closely linked to our self-worth which is a complex area with no quick fixes.
A great starting point would be to notice when your confidence starts to vanish or when you sabotage yourself. Thinking long-term, I believe that therapy and/or coaching as well as a great support system are the most helpful ways to build up your self-worth.
Commitment. This often comes down to having a strong enough reason that will carry you through the hard days. Ask yourself, why do you want to achieve your goal or goals in the first place? Is your reason or reasons in line with your values? If they are not, it’s much more difficult to find the ongoing motivation to work on them. I encourage you to connect your goals to your values and the things that matter most to you.
Your attitude to failure. Failure is an important way to tell us where we’ve gone off track or where we need to correct the course again — it’s just another form of feedback. What’s your attitude to failure? What can you do if you fail? How can you change your goal or goals? Are you willing to begin again?
Patience. Have you ever started learning a new skill and got discouraged because you didn’t see any results after the first week? Patience is definitely a virtue when it comes to working towards your goals. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, suggests creating a chart that tracks when you’ve worked on your goal. This provides instant gratification which will hopefully motivate you to keep going even though you may not see instant results.
Appreciate the journey. We are often too focused on the outcome and forget how beautiful and enriching the journey to get to the outcome is. So take this as my invitation to fully enjoy the often non-linear journey of working towards achieving your goals.
There is another great way that will support you in removing obstacles that are put in your way on the road to achieving your goals. Enter ACCOUNTABILITY.
I believe that being accountable to someone else is what helps many of us to be consistent. It offers support when times are tough and provides motivation when we want to give up. The premise behind this is that when we have to answer to other people, we can achieve things we find much more difficult to do when left to our own devices.
You can choose group accountability by, for example, joining the cabin. Another option would be to choose an accountability partner with whom you share your goals and then connect frequently to check in on your progress. I’ve been doing this with a friend of mine since September 2020. It’s truly amazing — not only do I feel supported and encouraged to work on my goals with greater joy and consistency, but I also get to be part of another person's journey which is a very inspiring and humbling experience.
What are your main obstacles on the journey towards achieving your goals?
