Four Reasons Why You Are Not Reaching Your Goals | Jennifer Magley

When was the last time you bought a pair of blurry glasses? In the store they were fuzzy but you looked at the smiling sales associate (now a blob of color) and confidently proclaimed: “I’ll take them!" Never, you have never done that.

When it comes to our greatest dream too often we settle for good enough or not bad. How is it that we accept a lack of clear vision in our personal and professional lives?Perhaps if we applied the same standard we have for products to our personal and professional goals our lives would look a lot different.

In my experience as a coach working with high performance athletes, executives, and business owners the acceptance of a blurred life vision comes down to four things:

1. FEAR

False Evidence Appearing to be Real

The fear of failure, success, and lack are essentially the same thing. Picture a deer peacefully walking through the forest. There is a small noise, what does she do…she freezes. In that moment of fear she is discerning if the noise is friend or foe. Fear (the perception of the unknown) paralyzes us in our intrinsic nature. It is the top reason we are not achieving our goals and is essentially the root of all evil. “What!” you proclaim, “isn’t the love of money the root of all evil?” Oh contraire my friend, the love of money is nothing more than the fear of being poor. 

Take this anecdote as circumstantial evidence. When chatting with a friend who manages money for a living the following exchange occurred:

Me: “So what is your basic level of client?”

Her: “Five million.”

Me: “Five million US Dollars, really?”

Her: (Sigh)

Me: “So what is the main concern of your clients?”

Her: “That I don’t lose their five million dollars.”

It seems that fear does not dissipate as the dollars increase. In fact, based on findings published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by Paul Piff, lower-class individuals were 44% more generous than people who self-identified as richer. Is it that they are more empathetic? Are these individuals navigating financial fear in a different way? Do poorer people have a clearer vision of the impact of their lives on others?

Regardless of the motivator to give, lower-class individuals give in the face of financial insecurity and fear. 

What is one thing you can do in the face of fear today?

2. COMFORT

Excess looks different now that everything is easily acquired sitting on a couch. From dinner to dates, easy access touches every area of our lives. Overcoming the mammoth obstacle of useful ease can be overwhelming. In other words, momentum is hard to build when you are sitting still.

As Tony Robbins famously said, “Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.” Essentially, the commitment to being comfortable is a direct blocker of goal achievement. It seductively whispers in your ear, “No baby, don’t listen to that doctor saying if you don’t change you may die… bust open these Cheetos and let’s lick our fingers clean.”

What is one thing you can do to make yourself uncomfortable this week?

3. LIES

Each day the cows come home on the same path, they are creatures of habit. They made this path and continue to follow it each and every day. For those not living in Indiana (like me) this is called a “cow path.” The Cow Path Theory is: “If you drop a cow in a random field it will eventually find its way to water or die trying. Though it may not be the fastest way, cows will do their best to reach their goal, and will continue to use the same trail leaving a cow path.”

Ever noticed that the stories we tell ourselves are circular? Like the cow path that brings them home each day in a line we tell ourselves the same story. These incredible stories can sound convincing. The unique thing about them is that they are often lies, maybe even ideas we initially rejected but later adopted as our own. Like a song you heard on the radio that you hated and now you just can’t get it out of your head, this is cow path behavior.

So what is the difference between a story and a baldfaced lie? The difference is that you believe the lie because you want to. In one of the more famous TED Talks by Pamela Meyer, she discuses that we will be lied to in the area that we want most in life. We are willing to compromise because we are seeking acceptance so badly we willingly suspend our disbelief.

What story are you telling yourself and is it true? How do you know if it is a lie?

4. TEPIDITY

That coffee smells so good as you pay the barista prepping your lips for a sip. It is, however, completely lukewarm. Resisting the urge to spit it out you return to the counter to inform them of the error. Neither hot nor cold, tepidness is one of the most undesired states. The only time that tepidity is required as a force of action is to activate yeast in baking. Otherwise, it is a challenge to find anything crave worthy that is purposefully served at the exact same temperature as your tongue.

Therefore, why do we accept lukewarm as the best life has to offer for us professionally and personally? What if it is possible to return to the barista of the “Universe” and request something a bit more hot, more intriguing. Goals are the cattle prods of life that zap change into action. They are the catalyst that turns water from tepid to boiling.

What can you do this year to heat up your life?

The purpose of a goal is to increase or enlarge. I firmly believe what Napoleon Hill said in his breakout book Think & Grow Rich, "Whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.” Whatever we desire is on the other side of fear, comfort, tepidity, and the lies we tell ourselves when only we are listening.

Jennifer Magley is a former professional athlete, speaker, author, and high performance coach. For a 15 Minute complimentary coaching call, email connect@magleyjennifer.com to schedule. Article originally appeared on www.magleyjennifer.com/blog More information can be found at www.magleyjennifer.com and videos on YouTube.