Goal Setting – How Many Attempts Do You Make?
I’ve been listening to Brian Tracy’s Ultimate Goals Program over the past few days.
One of the things that he mentions is the average number of times a person makes an attempt at reaching a goal before quitting.
What would you guess? Five? Ten? Twenty attempts?
According to Brian, the average person attempts to reach a goal less than one time before quitting.
When he first said this, I didn’t really get it. “Come on! That’s not even possible! You can’t average less than one – that would mean they didn’t start!”
Exactly.
Most people decide that they want to do something, but before they even try, all of the reasons that they can’t do it come crashing into their mind.
Their burning desire is extinguished even before it has a chance to really light up.
It’s good to know that we don’t have to live like “most people”, isn’t it?
This post has 13 comments
February 26th, 2008
I don’t agree – how can a person quit before they even start? – there has to be something wrong with these stats…..
February 27th, 2008
I catch myself doing that all the time. Now that I’m aware of it, I stop myself more. But when I was younger that is all I did was tell myself why I can’t be this, and why I can’t do that, and I didn’t even know I was sabotaging myself.
February 27th, 2008
I agree that goal achievement is hard. Not only do you have to not overwhelm yourself with too many, but you have to consistently keep working on it. I created http://www.mobtropolis.com as a different take on goal achieving using a photo scavenger hunt. Some things, you have to want it enough to keep plugging away. Or else you make it public so you have to risk public humiliation if you fail.
February 28th, 2008
@elliot – That was Brian’s point: so many people never allow themselves to do *anything* about their goals… they make zero attempts at them.
@Steve – Oh, yeah… I’ve been there myself many times. It does take practice, and comes back down to that basic self development idea: your thinking is what determines your success and/or failure. When we allow all of the reasons that we “can’t” do something to dominate, we’re screwed from the get go.
@Wilhelm – Interesting idea… the whole “public humiliation” thing never really worked for me, though. I’ve humiliated myself in plenty of other ways so many times that it has very little effect now.
Great point on the overwhelm, though – so many people try to do so many things at once that they end up doing nothing, frustrating themselves, and quitting.
February 28th, 2008
In my business consulting practice I have always focused on establishing the main performance targets and have used a simple A, B , C classification system for prioritizing. Now I have developed an entire series based on the goal of changing my life. visit http://www.stevereports.com for the business blog and http://www.prosperityroadmap.com/blog for my most recent work. Soon I will have this all pulled together and you won’t be able to touch it for the current price which of course is free.
March 3rd, 2008
You are welcome Lyman!
There are some people who were too busy/lazy to watch the whole video so here’s a summary:
Time Management For Lazy People!
March 5th, 2008
wow! very interesting… thanks
March 7th, 2008
Great debate!
Firstly, I truly believe in setting goals
Secondly, I set small ones which moves me towards my dreams
In my experience, I think people who don’t start on their goals because:
- they have set far too many and don’t know how or where to start and then give up
or
- the goal is too ‘large’, maybe unrealistic and they don’t believe they will ever achieve it
- they set the timescales too short – i.e. I want to get rid of my $50k debt in one month!
So make small step goals. If you want to loose weight just cut out eating biscuits this week and then next week cut out cakes and the following week…rather than cut everything out from day 1 and then give up!
Andrew
March 8th, 2008
Wow, that is insane! That was not at all what I was expecting when I began reading the post. Less than 1. Crazy.
March 12th, 2008
@Steve – An ABC-123 system does seem to work well for many people… it’s important to remember that the A or the 1 is going to give us the most “bang for our buck” so to speak.
@SJ – Time Management for Lazy People… I love it.
That’s a fantastic summary of the video!
@etavitom – I’m glad you got something out of it.
@GreatManagement – Excellent points about the taking on too much – that’s something that I’ve had to work on myself. If I’m not careful, I can really fall into two-speed mode: either full blast or at a dead stop. Full blast when orignally motivated and I’m gonna do it all, then frustrated and stopped because I couldn’t run a 4 minute mile after two days of training. Thanks for pointing that out.
@Cameron – Yup… crazy, but unfortunately I related with it!
March 26th, 2008
So true, and very sad.
People often set goals they don’t actually believe they will achieve. So they end up never trying at all. They let their beliefs about what is possible stop them.
There’s a saying by Gene Landrum I really like – “If you don’t know you can’t, you can. If you don’t know you can, you can’t.”
We need to work on becoming more ignorant of what is “realistic”.
April 1st, 2008
SuperSonicSuccess – Great point and quote. I suppose in some cases, ignorance *can* be bliss!
May 22nd, 2008
This is such an exciting topic! No, REALLY! Our brain actually needs multiple attempts at a goal. Each time we attempt to reach our goal we are forming neural pathways in our brain that will bring us closer to perfection on a future attempt. Our brain/mind/body is a “goal seeking missile” that is designed for course correction. We, of course, need plenty of information to put us on and keep us on the right track towards our goal (i.e. training, seminars, role playing) until…tada! we reach our goal!
Mental rehersal of our goal is a phenomenal tool that allows us to literally re-invent ourselves.
A great book on the topic is Evolve Your Brain by Dr. Joe Dispenza.
Most people don’t understand how a goal is achieved and that’s probably why they give up so early. Some people give up on the threshold of success. What a waste!
BTW – looking forward to more posts! We haven’t heard from you in a while