How Life Events Can Change Your Goals

There are many reasons why your goals do not get achieved.  Sometimes life happens and your goals get pushed to the back burner while you work on other things that have become a priority.  The things that were once important to you are no longer of major concern.  Your focus shifts to other things that need your immediate attention.  Here are how life events can change your goals and what you need to do when this happens.

Life Events

Major life events can happen that throw you for a loop.  Whether that’s tragedy, loss, death, or any life change that causes a disruption in your normal routine.  Your priorities shift and you’re now focused on another area of your life.  Your goals are put on pause while you sort through your emotions and work to get your life back in order.  Sometimes you have to pick up the pieces and figure out where to go from this point forward.  Major life events can send your life in a whole new direction.  You realize what you once thought was important is no longer that important and you change your focus.  This means your goals can change after any major life event too.

Change Your Goal

A major life event can cause you to look at the world differently through a new lens.  You may see the world and your future in it has changed.  That’s okay.  Give yourself permission and allow yourself to change your goals.  You are meant to change as your life goes on.  Otherwise, you’re not learning, growing, and evolving.  Check in with yourself and determine what’s most important to you right now.  See if your current goals align with that vision.  If it doesn’t, make a change.  Either scrap your goal all together or modify it so that you’re headed in the direction you’d now like to go. 

Make Changes

It’s okay to make adjustments as you go.  Minor tweaks can actually help you achieve your goals.  If you weren’t open to making changes, then you’d just be stuck waiting and hoping for the perfect plan to achieve your goals.  You might never get started because you fear you don’t know all the steps or have all the answers yet.  But, speed bumps and challenges will arise when you’re working towards achieving your goals.  Those are unexpected and you’ll never foresee all of them.  That’s when you’re going to have to make modifications.  You have to have a certain level of flexibility because nothing in life is certain except for the uncertain.  Major life events certainly proves that.  You’re going to have to make changes to your goals and plans in life.

You’ve Got This

Change is hard, but so is remaining stuck exactly where you are.  Often times you want life to remain the same because that’s your comfort zone.  Any change to that is scary and difficult to embrace.  You may find yourself trying to find a way to go back to the way things were.  You’d like to go back to a simpler time when you felt safe, secure, and you knew what to expect.  However, this is life and it’s going to constantly put new challenges in your path to overcome.  Expect the unexpected and know that you are capable of figuring it out to get through it.  Each time you do, your comfort zone expands and you’ve just added more evidence of how smart, strong, and capable you truly are.

Major life events can change the trajectory of your life.  One minute you think you’re headed in this direction, only to find out you’ve encountered a roadblock that sends you off in a completely new way.  This is life.  Be willing to be flexible and make adjustments as needed.  Don’t remain stuck where you are just because change is scary.  Pull from past experiences as a reminder that you can make it through tough times.  Change is hard but you’ve got this!