Why do we make goals and ended up not achieving them?

Happy new year! 🥳

It has been a while since I posted.

Let me try to find the reason why.

Aha! Found it!

So the reason is I have been very busy and stressed out going back to my country. There are lots of problems to settle and more things to catch up on such as the making of my bedroom, my dental problem, helping out with the family business, and so many more.

I used to have a goal where I asked myself to commit to writing blog (no matter how shitty it is) to be at least once a month and the above is the perfect example on how I just ended up not achieving my goal, even though it is such a small and simple goal.

Every new year, people have new year resolution which is something they tell themselves they will do or achieve, such as "In 2022 I will go to the gym everyday" or "In 2022 I will earn 100% more money". It's kind of like a goal.

But most of the time we ended up not achieving it and so along the way people starting to learn not to have new year resolution because that shit is useless.

I do have to admit, with all the hatred people have for new year resolution, it is pretty embarrassing for me to ask around "so what's your new year's resolution?" towards the strangers. I mean, I feel afraid that I might offend somebody!

But the thing is people don't really hate the concept of having a goal, they sometimes (probably) are just disappointed in themselves and so if you ask them "so what's your new year's resolution?" it reminds them of their disappointment in themselves and might probably just give answers like "Oh I don't know" or "I don't have one".

So the real question is: why do we make goals for ourselves and then we ended up not achieving it?

Understanding the why might help you to actually achieve your goal because then you understand better on how you work and so you might come up with some strategies on how to achieve your goal better.

Possibility 1: You haven't fully understand yourself

It is actually a little bit difficult to understand ourselves and sometimes without a full understanding of ourselves we ended up making goals that are very difficult to achieve and has higher risk of not being abandoned.

Maybe deep down, I'm just a monkey.

For example, I came to a realization that I hate gym.

I think working out at a gym is boring, not engaging, and uninteresting. I prefer to play sports games such as badminton, tennis, volleyball, etc. because there are the actual gameplay and you are playing with other people, which is fun. So in the past where I made new year's resolution "I am going to go to the gym everyday starting today!" is just not gonna do it for me. I found myself dreading to go to the gym it's like I am being dragged to go there. I have tried paying for the gym and going to the free ones, I just plain hate it.

I mean there is still a possibility of me going to the gym but the thing is, it's not really that bad to not wanting to go to the gym. You can get active by doing other things. So maybe to help yourself to achieve the goal, you might want to alter your goal and say "Next year my goal is to be more active" instead of "I am going to go to the gym everyday" and you might probably ended up achieving it.

Possibility 2: You have a bad habit

So maybe your goal sounds something like "I want to eat healthier in 2022" but half of 2022 went by and you just can't get yourself to eat healthy.

The possibility is that you have a bad habit and you find comfort in it. I learn this from a talk about abusive relationship. In it, a therapist told us that the reason why people who are in abusive relationship tend to date abusive people again and again is because they felt weird dating someone who doesn't abuse them. It's like they just got used to the bad thing and when something good comes their way, they think "wait a minute, what's going on?" but with an abusive person their mind goes "this is expected".

This got me to think that maybe this also applies to bad habit and things that are not good for us. If a person got so used to eating junk food, a healthy meal might tastes so bad. So if your goal is to completely change what or who you like, then it might be the reason why it's so difficult for you to achieve it.

The good news is, there are many ways to solve this endless chain of bad habit. One of the ways is to try to alter what's supposedly good for you to resembles what you are used to, in a healthy way.

For example, if you wanna transition from eating junk food to eating healthy, don't go straight to all vegetables that tastes nothing like the junk food you eat. Maybe add some seasonings in a way that it tastes somewhat like the junk food but you're eating healthy. And then once in a while when you have cravings, have some of the junk food but then go back to eating healthy. You might find yourself eating healthy more often than you used to and soon after you might just really prefer healthy food all the time.

I used to have a goal to read books often and reduce my social media/internet consumption. It's very difficult for me because I always starting to read a book and could never finish it. I'd pick the books that are rated highly by people who read books everyday. I read the recommended books and hating them when bibliophiles love them!

"In '91, Bret released this, American Psycho, the most accomplished book." AP is the first book I read that made me read it all the time and forget using my phone and computer.

What I did was I alter the books that I read a little bit to still have a resemblances to what I always consume on the internet. I love to watch movie scenes on YouTube and I always ended up wasting hours just watching movie scenes and clips. Then, I pick a movie that they made movie adaptation from so when I read the book, I imagine the scenes from the movie that I always watch on YouTube. I had fun reading it and without me realizing it, I finished reading the entire book.

Possibility 3: You have too many unresolved/ongoing issues

If you have found yourself still not able to achieve any goal you set to yourself, try asking yourself if you have any ongoing or unresolved issues. Try to list them down and look at your list, if it is way too long list of unresolved or ongoing issues in your life, maybe it's a good idea to just try to solve them first instead of making new goals for yourself. Unresolved issues will usually keep on requiring your attention from time to time and you might just not have any time to even try to do other things such as achieving your goal.

For example, if you have family problem, money problem, health problem, suffering from a a life-long disease, and on top of that have a severe mental illness, you might wanna hold off on having a new goal or a new year's resolution that is other than solving those problems. Taking care of yourself usually makes every other things go smoother and easier.

I have severe depression on top of other issues and it really is very difficult to do other things. But that being said, I am not allowing myself to just give up from doing other things because of my problems. I rather focus on solving my own problem and do whatever it takes to do so. In the process of solving them, I lost a lot of money, energy, and time. Surprisingly for me, when my issues do get better, I have more passion in doing other things.

Possibility 4: Maybe your goal takes more than a year?

This sometimes happen in setting a new year resolution. You might say "In 2022 I want to be a professional singer!" But fast forward to 31st December 2022 and you're still not a professional singer.

Sometimes your goal really just takes more than a year. You did plan to take courses and practice so you can be a professional singer by the end of the year but maybe you need about 3 years to be one. Every person is different. Some people only need a very short time to achieve what they want while some might take a very long time to do so. Maybe in between you can't practice as much because you are really busy with your work or study, which is fine!

Not to mention there is a pandemic going on and it might just not do some people's goal a favor. Maybe someone says "In 2022 I want to travel to at least 5 countries" but borders tightened and you just can't travel to 5 countries in 1 year.

So don't beat yourself up by the end of the year that you are still not achieving your goal. It might just takes a lot longer than a whole 2022.

Possibility 5: it's not for you

Maybe you do can achieve it, maybe you can do it in 2022. But is achieving this goal really good for you?

Let's just say you hope in 2022 you get a gaming laptop. But by the end of the year you have no gaming laptop. Fast forward to 2023, still no gaming laptop.

You might be asking why you still do not own a gaming laptop? One of the possibilities is that maybe you can definitely have it but it might not be good for you, at least for now.

I believe in when things are good for you, it will come to you easier compared to when it's not good for you. So maybe you definitely can buy a gaming laptop right now and you can immediately cross that from your list of new year's resolution but maybe after you have it, you will be too busy playing games and it will hinder your study.

This person is not playing games, but you get the idea.

We can't predict the future, but it's okay to assume that, when you try so hard for a very long time to get something but it's still not given to you, then maybe it's for the best.

It also happens to people who wanted to be promoted in their career. They'd work really hard to be promoted into a higher position but still not getting it. But what they don't know is that maybe they would be really unhappy being in the higher position with all the added responsibilities. Usually a boss knows exactly what the position is all about to determine whether or not you'd fit for the position.

And that's all, folks!

These are the possibilities on why we make goals and ended up not getting it. I hope that was helpful and provide clarity. There are more possibilities and not just limited to the ones I mentioned earlier. If you'd like to really find out why you can't keep achieving your goal, there are many other articles and self help books with more possibilities.

Thanks for reading!

-Leni