Why do goals stress me out?
In fact, goals scare me. I feel if I don’t achieve my goals, I’m a loser. Some people see goals as motivating but I see them as stress producing. Any suggestions?
In my coaching/mentoring I hear this quite a bit – goals create stress and pressure instead of motivation and excitement for the future.
Stress is often created by placing unrealistic expectations on yourself. It’s not the goals creating the stress, it’s the emotional expectations you’ve created about achieving goals.
Here are a few suggestions:
1. Set a short-term goal that has significant meaning to you. Choose a goal that can be completed within the next six-months. Choose something that is realistic within this timeframe. Example: Change eating habits to make sure you have a healthy breakfast before leaving the house or, clean out and organize the hall closet or, attend at least three new networking events to promote business —- see what I mean.
2. Take out your calendar and schedule a date to begin working on your goal. Let’s take the closet as an example: Schedule every other Saturday morning for two to three months for cleaning out “junk” and then several Saturday’s after that for organizing and arranging the closet. The key – break your goal into bite-sized realistic and doable pieces.
3. Make an emotional and physical commitment to completing your goal! Goals are not achieved if you’re not committed 100% to making them reality. Your goal has to be important enough that you’re willing to commit time, energy and money to making it reality. On a scale of 1 – 10, ask yourself how important is this goal? Why is it important? How will achieving this goal change life for the better?
4. Who can support you and hold you accountable? I’m not talking about someone who will guilt or shame you into achieving goals – I’m talking about someone who will support you in achieving goals. Accountability is often an important element to goal achievement. Who will support you with encouragement and want to hear your updates?
5. How will you celebrate when your goal is complete? The human mind loves rewards! When the unconscious mind believes success is fun, it wants to achieve more successes. As part of setting a goal it is important to visualize how you’ll celebrate its completion. How will the clean closet look each time you open the door? How will you feel when you can find things easily and effortlessly? The key is to paint a vivid picture of success in your mind’s eye of how life will be “better” when your goal is reality.
Start small and work up to long-term goals. Give yourself one goal achieving victory at a time. Eliminate the stress and make room for success!
Copyright © 2009 Sharon Michaels – All Rights Reserved
For over twenty years Sharon Michaels has been writing, speaking and empowering women to achieve greater personal and professional success. Sharon mentors/coaches women on learning to recognize the things they’re doing that may be keeping them from the things they want. Sign up for Sharon’s free weekly Ezine Unlimited Success For Women and have professional success strategies and personal development how-to’s sent directly to your email inbox.
