Leadership Thought #286 – You Either Hit Your Goals Or You Don’t

Leadership Thought #286 – You Either Hit Your Goals Or You Don’t

As we finalize the accounting for 2019, it’s a valuable exercise to reflect on the past year and how we performed against the goals we set at the beginning of last year. You start by being honest with yourself about whether you hit your goals or not. There should be no wiggle room or rationalizations. Progress is undoubtedly good, but it is no substitute for achievement. Too often in business and life, we accept less-than-stellar results.

There are only five main explanations as to why people don’t hit their goals:

  1. They didn’t believe in the goal in the first place.
  2. There were too many other competing goals.
  3. The goals were set too high and were unrealistic.
  4. Lack of support/buy-in from others who were critical to goal accomplishment.
  5. A significant personal or professional event intervened and diverted your focus.

First, too many people commit to things they think they should be doing rather than focusing on what they genuinely believe needs to get done. Success requires some level of passion and commitment. If the WHY isn’t big enough, then the HOW won’t matter. It’s easy to lose focus and get off track if you’re not truly committed to the outcome. Sometimes something sounds important and makes logical sense, but if your heart isn’t in it, it won’t happen.

Second, people tend to set far too many goals. In their enthusiasm at the start of the year, they approach everything they want to accomplish with a long list, losing all sense of perspective and prioritization. If everything is a priority, then nothing truly is. Goals should be things you feel compelled to do because of their importance and overall impact on your life. I advise my clients and friends to set no more than 5–7 primary goals each year.

Third, there’s a difference between setting a stretch goal and being completely unrealistic. There must be some reasonable chance you can hit your goal. I have some colleagues and clients who believe that setting incredibly challenging goals may not lead to their achievement, but the act of trying to reach them pushes you to perform at a higher level than expected. Personally, I don’t subscribe to this mindset, but even if you do, there should be a minimal threshold of what constitutes acceptable progress, and this bar should be high; otherwise, you will become accustomed to the idea of “good enough,” which is rarely ever the case.

Fourth, no one lives in a vacuum. We are dependent upon other people all the time to get what we want and need. If your goal requires a significant amount of input, effort, or support from someone else, ensure they agree to it first. The quickest path to frustration is to assume that your priority is someone else’s priority, even if you pay them to help you. Goal alignment is the necessary lubricant for success, providing a crucial foundation for achieving your objectives.

Finally, the first four reasons are within the realm of our control. If we are aware of the obstacles going in, we can do something about them. However, sometimes extraordinary (often unseen) events do occur and derail our focus and progress. There is not much you can do when this happens except to reprioritize your efforts around what is now most important. Instead of beating yourself up for not being successful, revisit what you originally planned and make reasonable adjustments based on the first four explanations and the impact of what you are now dealing with. Don’t lose sight of the original destination, but instead design a different, possibly longer route to get there.

I encourage you never to get comfortable with non-performance. It becomes too easy to rationalize why things didn’t happen and live a mediocre life. As time passes, the gap between who you wanted to be and who you are widens, leading to a bad self-image, bitterness, worry, and discontent. Either you hit your goals or you don’t—it’s that simple.

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