Do You Know Why Most People Fail To Achieve Their Goals?

I don’t like to write. I’m a talker not a writer. If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve probably figured that out. I remember the worst assignments in high school – term papers. Ughh! I hated those assignments. I would procrastinate until the last possible moment and when there were absolutely no other options, that’s when I would finally get it done. The choice was simple – fail or write. I heard college was fun, so I chose the latter. 

I also don’t like to exercise. I know I need to but I have never been able consistently exercise. For some reason I haven’t caught the bug. I just don’t enjoy pain. Call me crazy but the whole fitness thing just never appealed to me. When people talk of their tales of adventures – climbing mountains, running marathons or 10k’s, biking for 2 hours, I’m fascinated by their willingness to sign up for so much pain. They typically encourage me to try it as well. I always respond with an honest question, “Why?” To date, I really haven’t heard a very compelling reason.
“Oh you would love it. The day before we were to summit the mountain we could barely breathe. The oxygen was so thin, several climbers got really sick… At the end of the marathon, I almost died. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. You should give it a try.”

For some reason, I just haven’t been sold.

I know there is something going on here much deeper than just putting yourself through pain. It’s about overcoming challenges, bonding with others, blah, blah, blah…I just choose do that over a beer or while circling up at the beach with friends and family drinking what my friend Joe calls potato juice. Or maybe pushing myself while taking a long walk on a sandy beach (it’s hard to get traction so it builds your calf muscles).

So what’s my point?

I may not exercise but I DO write. I write consistently every week. While in school, I completed all of my term papers and I also worked out consistently. Why? In my mind, I had no choice. I was accountable. Here’s what I’ve learned about pushing yourself to accomplish something difficult:

We all need accountability to do the things we know we need to do but don’t want to do.

In other words, if you really don’t want to do it, you won’t – without accountability.

But you may say, “I don’t need accountability to run three times a week” (or whatever difficult goal you consistently achieve). The key word is “want”. You don’t need accountability if you WANT to run. With most runners I know, they need accountability to stop running (I’ve heard they are addicted to runner’s high – it’s like meth for healthy, upwardly mobile people). Some of you don’t need accountability to meet your business goals because deep down, you want to work 70 hours a week.

What is it that you really don’t want to do but you know you need to do it? If you don’t set up accountability for that, you’ll most likely be talking about it for years.

I’ve been talking about writing a book for over 10 years but I finally started last week. I got the first chapter done. I wrote for two straight days over the July 4th holiday. I have never worked on July 4th. Why the change? For the first time in 10 years, I am accountable.

What desires do you have, what destinations do you want to reach? Does the path seem way too challenging? Do good intentions fail when you start down that path? Does your discipline wane? Does progress halt? Maybe the requirements for reaching your desired destination don’t seem that daunting; you’re simply just not that motivated.

Maybe it’s a desire to learn a new skill or do a better job acquiring new accounts? Change careers? Diet? Save x dollars per month?

It’s a worthy goal, but if you are honest, the idea of what is required to accomplish the goal or the fact that you have failed so many times makes you cringe. Maybe your problem isn’t a lack of discipline or the level of difficulty in reaching your goal; maybe the solution is how you set yourself up for success.

So what does accountability look like? Here’s what has worked for me.

Sign up 

What launched the book was hiring an agent. He has a plan and is holding me accountable to that plan. Before, it was just me alone in a room trying to write. After meeting with the agent, I owed an outline and the introductory chapter. It’s was no longer an idea. We were moving.

You really want to get in shape? Commit the dollars and sign up for boot camp. It’s hard to get in shape but it’s pretty easy to sign up. But once you sign up, it’s much more difficult to stop.

I just hired a financial advisor. I am now paying him to hold me accountable. Staying within budget was hard but signing up was easy. Now I’m forced to look at the numbers every month. I hate it but I’m doing it.

What can you commit to that will move you toward your goal and create accountability? Something that DOESN’T require any discipline or change but forces a commitment to a plan?

To begin my book project, I booked a one week trip to a remote location. It was easy to book the trip but, once committed, I was stuck. I would either have to pay the $2,000 back to the company for funding the trip or get the outline and first chapter completed. So I wrote like the wind. Again writing was hard, but booking the trip was easy.

Start small

Don’t focus on achieving the goal but just getting started. Any step, no matter how small, will create momentum. If your goal is related to acquiring more accounts, start by signing up for sales coaching or committing to send 1 email per day to a cold prospect (or whatever is easily attainable). For me, writing 2 hours a week was doable. And once I began (because I signed up to have a marketing firm promote the blog), the more motivated I became and the more my goal to finish a book became real.

Lastly, Go Public

As long as it’s in your head, it isn’t real. But once you go public and declare your goal, more accountability sets in. As we learn in sales, we are all more committed to something we say we are going to do. But if it doesn’t have a date and the goal isn’t quantifiable, it doesn’t count: “Guys, I am planning on running more this year.” Any wiggle room eliminates accountability.

I committed to the company to have the book done by the end of this year. Well, actually I hadn’t gone public with that until now. But by writing those words, I just removed all other options.

Join me. What can you sign up for right now that will get you stuck?

(See, I told you I wasn’t a good writer.)