I’m a member of several Facebook groups in the online business space and I am amazed at the amount of comments from people who announce they are quitting after only trying to set up their business in a 6 to 12 month period. Digging a little deeper into their story and you find that they really haven’t put in a huge amount of effort and if you question these people about their level of commitment and asking them did they really try 100% nearly all can’t say that they have.
So why do people want to give up on a goal after only a short time and after not really putting in an good effort?
Firstly achieving goals (particularly larger ones) is hard! Success doesn’t come easy, you need to work at this!
Now I write this from someone who has only just started to have limited success with my goals so you can take my suggestions with a grain of salt however researching successful people across all walks of life does show clues about whether someone has put in the necessary efforts to achieve their goals or whether they are giving these goals lip service.
For all of these people who ask why aren’t I successful or why I don’t have lots of money or (insert you own metric) or even worse I’m about to give up on XXXX because I wasn’t successful, ask yourself what price have you paid to get yourself in the position that you are in?
By this I mean how much blood and sweat (and possibly tears) have you spilt in trying to achieve your large goal. If you have a long hard look at yourself in the mirror can you honestly say you have put in your best effort or at least a really good effort?
If you can honestly say that you have, then it’s time to set a new goal or a new path because you have exhausted your current efforts and current path and it’s time to move on to something different. Take everything you have learnt and use this in when setting your new goals.
If you haven’t put in a great effort then let’s look at analysing your online journey so far.
DO YOU REALLY WANT TO ACHIEVE SUCCESS
Most of you have these expectations of what you want to achieve out of life (dreaming about the partner you desire, the wealth you want to acquire the place you will be living in, the car you love) however the level of effort to achieve these goals doesn’t match the desire you have to achieve these. You may have let your health and fitness slide for a while and decided to set a weight loss and fitness goal. You read up on several people who have gotten fitter and healthier and you set out what you want to do, however when it comes time to clean up your diet or to start exercising you don’t follow through.
Another example of this could be for a monetary goal. You may have read stories about people saving $50,000 per annum or repaying their debts within 3 years and decide that this will be you. However when it comes time to cut back on your impulsive shopping purchases or cutting back on the regular boozy expensive nights out with friends and colleagues you don’t do it.
If this is you, then ask yourself do you really want success, do you really want to achieve these goals? Have you really set goals that mean something to you or are you setting goals that you think you might want. There may also be something deeper with your subconscious.
There may be invisible scripts developed whilst you were growing up that may be thwarting your success. Maybe you grew up believing something that is completely opposite and what may be subconsciously playing in the background silently sabotaging your efforts. It’s like having an invisible hand brake on.
For example you may have had parents that fought constantly over money and subconsciously you believe that money causes problems which leads to you subconsciously rejecting money and prosperity.
ARE THESE GOALS A REFLECTION OF YOUR TALENTS OR INTERESTS?
Let’s say you decide to set a goal to run a sub 10 second 100m sprint. This may not be physically possible depending on your genetic make up. If you had a desire to improve your speed then you might set a goal along the lines of taking X seconds off my 100m sprint time or XX seconds off my 400m time.
Another goal might be to make the NBA even though you are in your mid 40’s are barely 5 foot 5 inches, haven’t played basketball since high school, basically you have no chance of achieving this. If you want to get better at basketball then you might reframe this goal as I will spend 3 days per week, several hours per day working on my basketball skills.
Know what you can and can’t do but make sure that you are always pushing the comfort zone of what you can do or what you thought you could do.
ARE YOU DOING THIS FOR THE RIGHT REASONS?
Ever entered into a relationship and during the initial attraction phase you did all you could to please your new partner. Instead of being a messy person you were now a clean freak. Or your new partner is a teetotaller so you have given up your regular catch ups at the local bar with your mates due to your new relationships. Long term your existing behaviour will shine through or you will become very unhappy with your new relationship and you will return to how it was.
Make sure you set your goals with the same thought process. If your partner, parent, friend, etc wants you to lose 20 pounds yet it’s not a passionate goal of yours, how do you think your success will go?
What about if these same support network want you to save $20,000 to donate to something that you really have not feelings about? How will this end up?
When setting larger goals, make sure you are setting goals you feel passionate about. When the going gets tough and you want to quit, it’s a lot easier to hang in there when the end goal is something you are passionate about.
CHECK YOUR EXPECTATIONS
Also ask yourself are you being too hard on yourself or are your expectations too high? What I mean by this is if we take the measurement of revenue are your expecting too much too soon? So many newbies jump into the online space expecting to make thousands of dollars per month straight away! This will rarely happen, particularly if this person has little to no online experience. Stick with a plan to be consistent as James Clear has written about previously (insert link). Be consistent in writing and posting your content, be consistent in promoting your content, be consistent in learning and improving your online knowledge, be consistent in your online networking and building contacts.
After reviewing all of the above points can you now honestly say that your lack of success isn’t due to you not putting in a 100% effort for your goal?