Obstacles come in all shapes and sizes. Here are
some typical blocks to goal achievement:
1. Lack of creativity. You might have your
struggles to determine how to best work toward
attaining what you want. Perhaps you’ve run out of
ideas to make it happen.
2. Negative thinking. We’ve all been plagued by
negative thinking. You feel you will not
be able to achieve your dreams. Negative thinking
is a potent block because once it begins, it tends
to escalate and can become a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
3. Lagging confidence. Following closely on the heels
of negative thinking, sagging morale is the
bane of goal achievement. You begin to seriously
question your skills and abilities to complete the
work required to reach your goal.
4. Focus follies. Who among us can claim we’ve
never lost our way on the path to our dream
life? We want to reach that milestone, but we keep
getting thwarted by distractions. How can you
work on an important project when your wife
keeps asking you why you aren’t painting the
house or spending time with the kids?
5. Refusing to put in the effort. It goes without saying
that every goal requires you to work and
persevere to reach success.
6. Time traps. Making your way toward goals is
challenging enough without having the irritation
I need more time to do it.
7. Vague aspirations. Vague aspirations
equal unmet goals. If you’re unsure about what
you want, it’s a challenge to continue
steadily toward your goals.
Now that you have a good idea of blocks, you might
encounter on your way to goal achievement, use
these tips to overcome them:
1. Take responsibility to keep the creativity going. Draw
pictures of what you hope to achieve. Make a
storyboard of your plan of action. Design a vision
board of your goal pathway and
include how your life will differ after attaining
your goal.
2. Arrest negative thoughts. As soon as they creep in,
think, “Stop it now,” and mean it. Then, replace that
negativity with an “I will persevere and achieve.”
message. Tell yourself, “I can do it.”
3. Review past achievements. Give yourself props
for goals you’ve achieved before. What were those
goals? Use these reminder techniques to find and
connect with your confidence.
4. Commit to goals. Could you remind yourself daily about why
you want to reach a particular purpose? Perhaps you’ll
earn more money, get a better job, live where
you prefer, or protect your family’s future. Stay the
course by re-committing to goals each morning.
5. Work. Along with committing wholeheartedly to
goals, you’ve got to put in the work. Tell yourself
your effort will, in the end, be worth it.
6. Use your schedule. No matter what your goal,
consistently schedule the time to work toward it.
If you don’t keep a calendar now, start. Look at
your entire week or month and what’s scheduled
with a glance. Write in when you’ll work
toward goals.◦ Maybe it will be Tuesday evenings from
7:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. or Saturday
mornings from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
You can follow your schedule consistently.
7. Clarify goals. Write them and place copies
everywhere inside your house, briefcase, and
calendar. When you’re sure about what you want,
you can diligently work toward those goals.
There will be obstacles to block the pathways toward
your goals. But if you can identify the sources of the
blocks, you can develop solutions or use these time-tested strategies to navigate those obstacles and claim
your success.
Our upcoming lesson looks at fear and the
problems that fear creates. You’ll learn that you don’t
have many obstacles left in life if you can
successfully manage your concerns.
• Choose three of the common obstacles in this
lesson.
• Make a list of examples from your own life
where you faced those same obstacles.
• How could you use the tools in the Navigating
Obstacles section to have overcome or avoided
those obstacles?
Having a vision of where you want to go
in life is essential. If you don’t have a dream, how can you know
are you on the right track?
To make progress in life, we must first have a vision of what we want to accomplish. This vision can be written down and shared with others to increase our chances of success. Once you know where you want to go, it is time to make plans. This will involve identifying a plan of action and creating a timeline that you can use to track your progress while you pursue the goal. It’s essential to be realistic about how long you can work toward a goal and remember that the most crucial part of achieving a goal is getting started.
