The 5 Most Common Goal-Setting Mistakes People Make

Learn the most common mistakes and avoid making them yourself

Setting goals may be a key to success but when done wrong, it may lead to frustration and ultimately cause you to give up. Despite how important goals are, setting goals doesn’t always work. According to research by the University Of Scranton, 92% of people that set New Year’s goals never actually achieve them. As such, it can be helpful to be aware of the common goal-setting mistakes so the process is as stress-free as possible.

If you've found yourself with a big list of goals and no clue how to achieve them, or feeling nervous about hitting roadblocks you may have faced in the past, the following list of goal-setting mistakes can make the entire process a whole lot easier:

Doubting yourself

Lack of belief in your ability to follow through with your plans will kill your goals even before you start. Doubting your strength or lacking the patience, perseverance and flexibility are the most common goal-setting mistakes. It is also important to take temporary defeat in your stride. Failing only means that there is a better way of doing things. Pay attention to the lesson your failure is trying to teach you and don’t give up.

Not setting short-term goals

Setting long-term goals is an important part of the entire process but a key to achieving these big goals is to break them down into smaller goals. Make them more achievable and short-term. Plus, small goals are easier to achieve on a regular basis, which means we can set them more often, build off them, and constantly see ourselves getting better. These small wins can also help us build momentum and confidence in our ability to achieve our long-term goals.

Having unrealistic expectations

Setting goals can be a challenging task and most of the time people tend to set goals in a very unrealistic way. This is a common goal-setting mistake that makes people aim higher than realistically achievable. They eventually beat themselves up if they don’t achieve everything they want. When your expectations are too high or unattainable, you put a lot of pressure on yourself. All that pressure builds up, and when you eventually fail, the disappointment can shatter your whole goal-making confidence. This can cause you to doubt yourself even more.

Lacking a sense of urgency

Lacking urgency to achieve your goals is a common stumbling block in goal-setting. We often become complacent with a false sense of security that we will always have enough time to achieve our goals. This can lead to stress as we try to make up for the lost time when our deadlines draw near. The key is to keep your goals front of your mind throughout the goal-setting process so it’s easy to view them with a sense of urgency instead of letting them fall through the cracks.

Not leaving room for compromise

Even though it’s ideal to remain as focused and dedicated to your goal as possible, it might not be healthy for everyone to have strict and harsh guidelines that don’t allow for any learning curve. One of the most common goal-setting mistakes is that most pair their goals with uncompromising regulations. This is a recipe for defeat and not to mention a set up for feeling even more deeply frustrated than you did before you set your eyes on a target. Allowing for fallbacks, slips, breaks, detachments and flat-out mistakes can make our entire journey a lot more easier.

Research shows that it takes anywhere from 18 to 254 days for an individual to form a new habit, and 66 days for that habit to become a behavior. It is important to not rush and be kind to yourself as that will set you up for success. Avoiding these goal-setting mistakes can make your goals easier to achieve. Remember, a little self forgiveness and discipline goes a long, long way.