8 Goal-Setting Mistakes That Are Stealing Your Success -

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Do you have big dreams but never seem to be able to achieve them? If so, you may make one or more of these eight goal-setting mistakes.

All of us have our goals in life, diverse as it may be. However, goals are just pipe dreams without proper techniques and mindsets.

You might blame your lack of success on procrastination, motivation, and time when your problem is how you set your goals.

Rectify these goal-setting mistakes, and you will see a drastic change in your life.

A pin design for a blog post about goal-setting mistakes that are stealing your success

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8 Goal-Setting Mistakes That Are Stealing Your Success

1. You aren’t specific enough.

Your goals need to be specific and detailed.

Don’t say:

I want to travel.
I want a new hobby.
I want more money.
I want to become a blogger.

As harsh as it seems, these dreams will never come true. Why? Because they aren’t specific enough.

For this post, I will focus on one example to break it down i.e. “I want to be a blogger”. Mainly because I’m knowledgeable on this topic and I share this dream.

So, how do you become more specific? The simplest way is to ask yourself questions.

What type of blogger do I want to be?
What is the effect I want my blog to have on the community?
Why do I want to be a blogger?

Therefore, our sentence should sound like this:

I want to become a personal development, full-time blogger to contribute to the community’s mental well-being. My goal is to reach my dream of helping others and financial freedom but also help others reach theirs.

2. You have no timeline.

You need to set a timeline for your goal, otherwise, you have nothing to work towards. Setting a time stamp on your goal will keep you accountable.

I set monthly goals or milestones for my blog to reach my overall ambitious goal of doing the thing I love for the rest of my life by making my blog a lucrative source of income.

For instance, this month’s goal is to reach between 80,000 and 95,000 Pinterest views and 2000 blog views. This gives me something to work towards.

For our example, you can say:

I want to become a full-time successful blogger in ___ months/years.

Then follow up with smaller, time-sensitive goals:

I want ____ Pinterest views in my first month.
My goal is to be approved by Google Adsense by ____ this year.
I am aiming to start earning money in ___ months.
And so forth.

3. You’re focusing on the wrong thing.

A common goal-setting mistake is to direct your energy and focus poorly.

Your focus should not be on the ultimate result of your goal. Yes, it should be in the back of your mind. But if you put all your focus on it, it will be a detrimental goal-setting mistake.

Instead, focus on the process toward your goal. Otherwise, you will become overwhelmed and that’s when you give up.

If you focus on the end goal the journey will get you down. Embrace the process and the failure that comes with it. The victory will be so much sweeter!

Don’t think of the financial freedom and the lifestyle you envision for yourself. That should merely be the motivation that drives you through the tough times.

4. You’re not tracking your goals.

As someone who loves lists, planning, and structure this comes naturally to me.

Tracking your goals will have two effects:

You will have a visual representation of your progress which will motivate you. Sometimes we forget the progress we made and we feel miserable. Whenever the road starts to feel bumpy and long, I look back on my tracker. Then I’ll see how I accomplished goals I never thought I would.
Your goals will be structured and planning will be easier. Now you can see whether you accomplished the month’s goals. If not, you can plan another strategy for the new month. For instance, I changed my Pinterest strategy this month because I didn’t see a major growth or decrease in numbers.

There are many different ways to track your goal. I track my year’s gross statistics on paper and use Notion for finer details.

I highly suggest doing monthly/annual audits as well. Check out the links below for full guides on how to do life audits.

Let me know if you are interested in a Notion tour in the comments!

5. You don’t see your goals anywhere.

This is probably one of the goal-setting mistakes that are the most fun to rectify. You will forget your goals if you don’t write them down. It won’t be ‘real’ if it lives in your imagination.

Goals can be visualized in many different ways:

Writing them down
Using a creative platform, like Notion
Putting sticky notes on your PC
Putting motivational photos on your mirror
Or my personal favorite, creating a vision board.

I suggest you use two different tools:

Write down your goals
And creative a visual version thereof.

I’ve written down all my goals on Notion and created a vision board that remains my desktop and phone background as reminders.

If you don’t know how to create a vision board, I have you covered! I have two great vision board guides: how to make a vision board AND how to create a digital vision board for FREE!

Here is my vision board for inspiration.

6. Your goals don’t serve a purpose.

A goal without purpose is hollow and meaningless. Why would you want to put hours of work into something like that?

The main purpose of my blog is to build a like-minded community that thrives on building their dream lives. I want to surround myself with people who will uplift and help each other reach their dreams

Maybe you’re saying, “Steph, I don’t even know my purpose.” I’ve been there. It sucks not knowing.

Finding your purpose is a journey of self-discovery. I cannot tell you what it is however I can assist you on your journey. Read this post on how to find your purpose. If it doesn’t help, you are more than welcome to reach out via email.

7. You have too many goals.

I also have a bunch of goals from different categories in my life; however, it becomes a goal-setting mistake if all of them are your major goals.

Narrow your goals down to one or two major goals that will take most of your time and focus. See the rest of your goals as side quests (I hope my fellow gamers love the lingo).

Too many goals will have you running around like a headless chicken, unorganized and overwhelmed. Do you see why goal planning is essential to success?

My main goal is to grow my blog. My side quests for example are going on holiday, journaling regularly, and crocheting. You know, the usual.

8. Your goals are unrealistic.

I am both blessed and cursed with exceptional ambition. I call it a partial curse because I want to achieve great heights in the shortest amount of time which only ends up biting me on the b*tt.

Keep your goals realistic and achievable; otherwise, you might burn out.

Instead of saying that you want to make six figures within a year with your blog, say you want to be able to quit your day job by the end of one to two years.

Goals take hard work. Rome was not built in a day.

Hot tip: Break your goal down into much smaller goals. It will make it more achievable and you’ll be able to see how much time it will roughly take to complete your goal.