What You Can Do When You Didn’t Achieve Your Goals

As this year winds down, you may be thinking you’re not quite where you thought you’d be.  You may have set some goals for yourself that you didn’t quite manage to reach this year.  Or, maybe life took a completely different direction because of certain challenges.  Don’t get disheartened.  Instead, here is what you can do when you didn’t achieve your goals this year.

What Didn’t You Achieve

Start by taking a look at what you wanted to achieve but didn’t.  Assess the goals you set for yourself and the progress you made this year.  Perhaps that’s a lack of progress.  Acknowledge where you are.  But, don’t beat yourself up and feel bad.  You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.

What Held You Back

Next, ask yourself what got in the way of you not being able to achieve your goals this year.  Perhaps you faced some external or internal challenges.  Maybe some personal things occurred that forced you to put your goals on the back burner.  Or, it could be the internal struggle where you held yourself back by succumbing to the fear, worry, and self doubt that often prevents you from achieving your goals.  It might be the fear or failure, procrastinating, waiting for everything to be perfect, worrying about what other people will think, or if it will be good enough.  Write down what stopped you from getting to where you wanted to be this year.

What Can You Do

Then, write down what you can do to not let these things hold you back in the future.  Maybe you need an accountability buddy or at least setting up some form of accountability for yourself.  Perhaps you need to make better use your time by actively using your planner.  Or you may need to pay closer attention to your mindset and notice when you’re experiencing limiting beliefs that telling you to stay in your comfort zone.  Write down what advice you’d give yourself that would have helped you overcome the things that held you back this year.

How You Feel

It’s extremely frustrating not being where you wanted to be because of your lack of goal achievement.  Don’t be hard on yourself for letting things get in your way.  Instead, write down your frustrations and get it all out on paper.  Write down how you feel about what happened this year and how you feel about where you currently are in your life.  Get in touch with your feelings so that you know what area you need to work on.

Release Exercise

Lastly, decide what you need to let go of this year.  Let go of the feelings of unhappiness, disappointment, lack of worthiness, etc.  Let go of the bad habits, the beliefs holding you back, and everything that’s not serving you.  Let go of the goals that you no longer want to achieve because it’s out of alignment with where you want to be.  Make a list of everything you want to let go of on a piece of paper.  Looking at this list, be thankful for this past year and all that it has taught you.  Then, either light your piece of paper on fire or tear it into shreds to release all of things that you don’t want to take with you into the new year.

You have big goals and dreams for the future but so often it doesn’t materialize the way you had planned.  You experience challenges and unforeseen setbacks pop up that prevent you from achieving your goals.  But, focusing on what you didn’t make happen this year will only leave you feeling unhappy.  You have the power to choose to let go of the negativity, self doubt, and all the things that held you back from getting to where you wanted to be.  Or, you can choose to remain focused on the regrets, disappointments, and shortcomings over the past year.  A new year is coming.  Choose to focus on the positive, your amazing future, and the all the incredible possibilities ahead.