January is a popular time to set goals but have you noticed how often these aren’t followed through or achieved. Haven’t we all been in that boat at some time? I know I have. Through working with people not only to set their goals, but more importantly to achieve them,

I’ve found there’s one thing which consistently prevents people reaching their goals. It has nothing to do with not persevering, lacking willpower, being unfocussed or not being able. It’s the fact that people haven’t set the right goals for themselves and this usually means that a particular goal was a ‘should’ or an ‘ought’. For example, I should network each day. I ought to work harder.

A ‘should’ or ‘ought’ amounts to what other people expect of us, which results in pressure we put on ourselves to conform. Other people make us worry so we try to accomplish too much. As this message is dictated by outside sources, there isn’t the same level of commitment from you. So, when you don’t manage to stick to your goals, you probably feel as if you’ve failed. Life’s too short to be dragged down by this.

I encourage you to set goals that suit you, based on your own personal values, so that they can appear effortless, leave you feeling excited and which intuitively feel right for you.