Why it's so hard to stick to your goals

and how to fix it

Jun 11, 2023

If you’ve ever set yourself a goal, you will know that achieving it is easier said than done. Whether it's striving for a healthier lifestyle, pursuing a dream career, or simply wanting to read more books, goals give us a sense of purpose and direction. So why is it, according the University of Scranton, fewer than 8% of people actually achieve their goals?

In the first few days, possibly even weeks, you attack your goals with determination and enthusiasm. And then things start to get tough. The trials and tribulations of life stand in your way. You skip one day, then another, and before you know it you lack the same drive you had in the beginning and your goal remains a distant dream.

This story may not be new to you, it certainly isn’t to me.

In the beginning we are acting on impulsive motivation. This rarely lasts. What’s left when motivation fades away is our ability to stick to the daily actions that lead us closer to our goal.

Why do we give up?

Short-term thinking versus long-term thinking

“It doesn’t take 90 days. It takes years.” - Alex Hormozi

For years, I have fallen into the trap of thinking in days and weeks, not in years and decades.

Take this newsletter for example. My big goal is to grow it to 10,000 subscribers. I’m around 9,500 short right now and I have been writing for 20 weeks. That isn’t a long time but the Jake 2 years ago would’ve stopped writing about 6 weeks ago. It’s no wonder I’ve failed at most of my goals.

Making the mental switch to think in years and decades is a hard one but necessary to allow your actions to compound over a long enough time-frame.

Outcome focussed, not process focussed

I used to obsess about the outcome of my goal. “When I achieve this goal I will be happy”. This mindset takes the focus away from the daily actions and on to the outcome.

The end goal should not be the focus. Simply focus on what you need to do today to get you a tiny step closer to achieving your goal.

The ‘Why’

Why have you set yourself the goal you have? There is a guy currently running the full length of Africa. It will take him 8 months and he is running an ultramarathon most days of the week. I will never understand his ‘Why’. But he will.

You need to be able to motivate yourself to do the work even when you don’t want to. Set goals based on a strong reason why and this will carry you forward.

Compare ourselves to others

Your goals are your goals. Their goals are their goals. We all have different reasons for taking the paths we take, so comparing ourselves to others is futile. In most cases, we compare ourselves to somebody who been showing up and putting in the work for years. Comparing ourselves to who we were yesterday, now that’s a better opponent.

No system

Goal-achievers don’t just set goals, they set systems. They know what they need to do every day to move them one step closer to their goal and they show up and just do that.

When you’re focussed on the inputs and not the outputs, you’re able to check off a box at the end of the day saying ‘I did the work today’. Each day is a success in of itself.

Our goals versus somebody else’s goals

Every year thousands of kids go to university and study in a field their parents want them to major in. Your goals must be your own goals. Only you can be the person that will achieve them and you’ll find it very difficult to show up every day if the pursuit of a goal is not deeply rooted in your own psyche.

Unable to deal with setbacks

Setbacks are a force of nature. We’ve all experienced them and we will continue to experience them until the day we die. Dealing with setbacks can be learnt. Goal-achievers understand that there will be challenges ahead and see setbacks as opportunities to learn and grow.

Vague goals

‘I want to lose weight’ is not the same goal as ‘I want to lose 4lb by August’. One is vague and the other is specific. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound.

Since we are not just setting goals, but creating systems to achieve those goals, the more specific we can get with our goals the clearer it becomes of how to get there. Vague goals are difficult to measure and an unclear vision makes it difficult to stay on track.

Chasing shiny objects

When there’s none of the initial motivation left, we have to find a way to keep showing up every day. But in this slog, others things start to seem a little bit more appealing.

Achieving big goals requires commitment and the willingness to delay immediate gratification but shiny objects tempt us with new ideas and new goals.

The result is that we hop from one goal to the next, living off the dopamine of starting new pursuits and making very little progress in any direction.

How to achieve your goals

Research by the University of Michigan concluded that 76% of participants achieved their goals when they did three things:

Wrote them down
Committed to action steps
Developed a support network

You are 44% more likely to achieve your goals simply by writing them down. The deliberate act of writing those goals make the invisible, visible. A written goal you can look at, read, re-read. Make it the background of your phone or pin a post-it note above your computer.

Goal-achievers don’t just set goals. They set systems. They identify the daily action steps that will move them toward their goal and they commit to it.

Let’s say you set yourself a goal of writing a novel in 12 months. That’s a big and challenging goal. You’ve written it down, congratulations, you’re already more likely to succeed at your goal. Now what?

Well, writers write. And if you want to write a novel you sure as hell need a daily system that you can commit to.

Let’s say a typical novel is 70,000 words long. You need a system for writing 191 words per day, every day for 12 months.

Perhaps you wind your alarm clock back an hour to write before work and make this time sacred. You might write 100 words in the morning and 91 words in the evening. Maybe 191 words a day is actually unreasonable for your lifestyle and 1330 words on a Sunday is more achievable. What’s important is finding a system that works for you and then committing.

And thirdly, you develop a support network. There are thousands of people who’s goal it is to write a novel. Where do they hang out? Forums? Reddit? Facebook Groups? Local Meetups? Book clubs?

You need somebody to hold you accountable. This could be a friend or someone who is writing a book themselves.

The same study at the University of Scranton found:

76% of participants who wrote down their goals, actions and provided weekly progress to a friend successfully achieved their goals.

That’s a far cry higher than 8%.

Takeaway

The difference between goal-achievers and everybody else, is not giving up.

It’s not genetic. It’s not talent. They don’t hold the keys to secrets that nobody else knows about. They simply show up consistently for long periods of time.

They have a system in place, they stay accountable and they think long-term.

Their goals are very specific, they avoid shiny objects and they embrace the inevitable setbacks that will stand in their way.

Reflect on the goals that you didn’t achieve in the past. I’m willing to bet that it’s because of at least one of the reasons above.

Awareness of why we give up allows us to recognise those behaviours when we do and correct course.

Further Reading and Sources:

How Many People Reach Their Goals? Goal Statistics 2023

Achieving your goals: An evidence-based approach

3 Psychological Reasons You Can’t Stick to Your Goals

8% of people achieve their goals