Frequently Asked Questions About How to Stick to Your Goals
As a coach, I hear the same challenges and questions time and again. Here are answers to some of the most common roadblocks that people encounter on their journey to achieving their goals.
What if I have too many goals? How do I choose what to focus on?
This is the most common trap. Having too many goals is as bad as having none because your attention and energy are fragmented. The secret is ruthless prioritization. Look at your list of potential goals and ask, “Which one of these, if I achieved it, would make the biggest positive impact on my life right now?” Or, “Which goal would make all the other goals easier to achieve?” Choose one—at most two—major objectives for a quarter. It feels restrictive at first, but the depth of focus you gain will lead to more actual progress than trying to juggle five things at once. You can always pursue the other goals in a future quarter.
How do I handle conflicting priorities, like a demanding job and a personal goal?
The solution is not to find more time, but to become more intentional with the time you have. This is where constraint-aware planning and time blocking are essential. Acknowledge that your job takes up a significant portion of your time and energy. Don’t fight it; plan around it. Can you wake up 45 minutes earlier to work on your goal before the day’s chaos begins? Can you dedicate your lunch break to it? Is there a 60-minute window after dinner? Schedule these non-negotiable appointments with your goal onto your calendar. By giving your goal a specific time and place to live, it stops being a “someday” idea and becomes a real commitment that can coexist with your other responsibilities.
My motivation comes and goes. How do I stick to goals when I don’t feel like it?
This is a critical insight: motivation is a fickle and unreliable resource. Professionals do not rely on motivation; they rely on systems and discipline. The system we’ve outlined—from vision to daily action—is designed to carry you through dips in motivation. On days you don’t “feel like it,” your job isn’t to muster up inspiration. Your job is to simply execute the small, specific daily action you planned. Don’t think about the entire journey; just focus on putting on your running shoes. Just focus on opening the textbook. The action itself often creates its own momentum. For more on the science of motivation, resources from the American Psychological Association can be very insightful; you can visit them at www.apa.org.
What if my goal is hard to measure? How do I create metrics for something ambiguous like “be more confident”?
This is a great question that highlights the importance of translating the intangible into the tangible. You can’t directly measure “confidence,” but you can measure the behaviors that a confident person exhibits. Break it down. What would a confident version of you do? Perhaps they would speak up in one meeting per week. Or maybe they would initiate one conversation with a stranger each day. Or they would volunteer to lead a small project. These are specific, measurable actions. Choose one or two of these “confidence behaviors” as your leading indicators. Track them consistently. By performing the actions of a confident person, you will, over time, become one.
How long does it take to see results? I get discouraged when progress is slow.
Progress is rarely linear, and early results are often slow to appear. This is why focusing on leading indicators (inputs) instead of lagging indicators (outputs) is so crucial. You can’t control how quickly the scale moves or how fast you get a promotion, but you can control whether you did your workout today. Celebrate the victory of showing up. By tracking and taking pride in your inputs, you get a daily or weekly “win” that keeps you in the game long enough for the lagging results to compound and become visible. Trust the process. Consistency is the engine of all significant achievement.
