6 Dangerous Reasons People Do Not Set Goals and Never Succeed
April 25, 2023
Goal setting is the framework for personal achievement. It is the backbone of becoming a person you desire to be. Setting and achieving personal goals will guarantee you success. Most people who do set goals have little to no understanding of goal setting and as a result fail to achieve them and never succeed. You would think that if goal setting was the ultimate skill and secret to success that everyone would develop their own personal goals and learn to achieve them. Unfortunately, the world is not that perfect. There are six dangerous reasons people do not set and achieve their goals which act like a road block to their success.
There are several reasons why people do not set goals similarly to why people do not care about communicating effectively. I know with absolute certainty that everyone will experience a more successful and far enjoyable life if they learned to communicate effectively. Arguably the greatest modern day personal development Coach, Anthony Robbins said, “The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.” Effective communication determines the quality of your life with others while self development determines the quality of your inner life.
The first reason I believe why people do not set goals is they do not see its importance. Like people who do not develop their communication and other aspects of themselves, they do not see the importance of setting goals. I have met people who are unbelievably resistant to developing their communication. They have actually found it insulting to think they need to improve how they communicate! Every single person on the face of this Earth can always communicate more effectively and have their life improve as a result. Likewise, with goals there are people who do not see the importance of setting personal goals. Goal setting forms the foundations for personal achievement and it is of the utmost importance.
The second reason why people do not set goals is a fear of others caused from criticism. People criticize because they see faults in others or are brainwashed by society and other beliefs into thinking greatness cannot be achieved. They criticize to hold people back from achieving goals. Average people do not want others to go beyond average. A person can fear setting goals because each time they have set goals in the past, others have criticized and shot down their dreams. Others impose their own self-limiting beliefs through criticism instilling fear within the person. Think of receiving criticism as a poisonous needle injected into your body. It slowly controls and destroys what you want. The destructive thought of fear controls the person from achieving anything remarkable. Put bluntly, screw what people think. Screw allowing people to destroy your life with their beliefs. Society is filled with endless garbage to prevent you from achieving your goals. If you want something, go and get it by setting and achieving personal goals.
The third reason why people do not set goals is a fear of failure. They can think success is derived from not failing. The opposite is true. Success comes from failing a lot and failing fast. Famous inventor Thomas Edison said, “I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Being an inventor, Thomas understand failure was apart of success. Failure was the nuts and bolts that constructed his success. Understand that failure occurs and it shows you are taking action. Learn from failure and enjoy knowing you are moving towards your goals instead of fearing to set out after them in the first place.
The fourth reason why people do not set goals is a fear of success. People who fear success believe it is bad. The fear is common in wealth and wanting an attractive partner because negative results will occur. They believe wealth is evil or a certain type of partner is unfaithful. The fear prevents them achieving what they want by not laying the foundations of their desire with goal setting.
The fifth reason why people do not set goals is they do not know how. This reason relates to fear of failure where the person has set goals in the past, but has not achieved them and becomes discouraged from the failure. These people become disheartened from the failure and think failure is imminent. They do not learn from past mistakes and move towards personal growth. The classic example of this is losing weight as a new year’s resolution. A mere temporary motivation inspires the person who is lucky to lose weight in January but no further progression towards achieving the goal occurs in later months. If you do not set and start working towards a goal now, what makes you think you will be able to achieve it as a new year’s resolution? There are techniques such as SMART goal setting which I have written about but are not covered in this article. Using SMART goals enables you to set and achieve goals then merely wishing a result based on temporary motivation too common around the new years period.
The sixth reason why people do not set goals is they lack the inner desire to want something greater then what they currently have. For them, the ordinary or even sub-ordinary is sufficient. These people do not believe they can reach or deserve success because society has conditioned them into thinking they are ordinary people and therefore must do ordinary things. It can also be caused by failure, criticism, and other reasons as to why people do not set goals.
Did you find yourself relating to one of these six dangerous reasons people do not set goals and as a result never succeed? Do not fret too much because you are now more self-aware and able to doing something about. All that is required for you to do is learn how to set achievable goals. I personally advise people to follow the SMART goal setting technique because its congruency with successful goal setting is spot on. You set specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and tangible goals leading to your success. Master this skill and you will have the most powerful personal development technique in your grasp to achieve success.
Author’s Bio
Joshua Uebergang has written a free guide for you on setting SMART achievable personal goals. Josh can teach you effective communication skills to improve your life from the loads of resources on personal development at his website. He has an inspiring communication skills newsletter you can try for free with a trial-subscription.
I agree with those reasons. Not all people know the importance of goal setting. Some just refuse to understand it’s importance and others may not be aware of such thing
I believe that the second reason which is the fear of others caused from criticism is mostly the effect of a childhood surrounded by people that are always criticizing. This influence is strong enough to cause a person to avoid setting their goals.
[...] Goal setting is the framework for personal achievement. It is the backbone of becoming a person you desire to be. –Joshua Uebergang, Cultivate Greatness, 6 Dangerous Reasons People Do Not Set Goals and Never Succeed [...]
Excellent post that illustrates what hold (some) people from goal setting.
That said, I recently came across a report of an interview given by Bob Proctor and he mentioned that “Most people are not going after what they want. Even some of the most serious goal seekers and goal setters, they’re going after what they think they can get.”… it was an interesting point and also makes me wonder, for those goals that we set, are they really what we want or what we think we can get… hmm
Spot on article which I shall link from my web site physicsofgettingwealthy.com/rights where we look at the the science of getting rich. This article brings into focus why most people fail at trying to implement the Law of Attraction belief system.
The reason in each step must ring true to so many of us. Well done Joshua. The sixth point I believe is the key to our own downfall in goal setting We just do not want to believe in our inner ability.
It’s true that not all people know the importance of goal setting. As the saying goes, “when you fail to plan, you plan to fail”.
We need to set our long-term and short-term goals. Whatever goal we commit to our subconscious mind, it will continue to work day and night to achieve, together with the action plan. Once the goal is measurable, it will be attainable. Otherwise, it will simply be something we wish or just a good idea.
Often times, people do not end up getting what they want is simply because they have not determined what they want. They do not seem to have a crystal clear detail of their desires. So, we will be able to feel and see what success is like.
You should try visualizing having ur goals. It helps alot too. Bob Proctor, a reknowned philosopher talks about it here. http://www.personalgrowthtip.com/rights
I agree that The Secret or Law of Attraction is not something new. However I disagree with you that The Secret or Law of Attraction doesn’t work. Law of Attraction works.
Let’s start with the first one: Law of Attraction is not something new. It’s true that Law of Attraction has been around since the history of mankind, just in different term. In fact, Law of Attraction is stated in the Bible. Matthew 7:8 “For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
I actually knew about visualization from Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich and Sandy McGregor’s Piece of Mind but I never believed and practiced it until I watch The Secret.
Ok, the second one. Law of Attraction works. I’m the living testimonial. Whatever I want happens amazingly. I don’t say instantly, but over a period of time.
That’s the power of visualization.
By the way, I’ve found out an audio that helps me visualizing easier
This audio is surely fantastic and it comes with 365-day money back guarantee. Plus you get a free report. You must give it a try at http://www.AudioGettingRichScience.com.
Hey,
Great article!
Reminds me…. we always hear of that case study where graduates from a top university were tracked on how successful they were after graduation.
Many years later the 3% who wrote down their goals were worth more collectively than the rest of the 97% combined!
Cheers!
Andre
~~~
http://www.PersonalGrowthPlan.com/rights
Hi, I really apreciated this website! Thanks
I really feel that everything comes into place when there are goals set. I have never been very good at setting goals I suppose because I’m scared of failure. But now that I beleive in myself goal setting is working for me.
Magz’s last blog post..Tesco, Chickens and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Hello: I am in the process of creating a powerpoint presentation and really like the image in this post. Can you tell me where it comes from so that I can ask permission to use?
Thanks.
Adrienne