Why Are Most Goals Never Achieved? What Makes Goal Achievement Inevitable?

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Note: By writing this post don’t get the idea I think I’m a goal expert, cuz I’m far from it. I do know however, what’s worked for me and a few others time after time. I offer this merely as food for thought, and a possible insight to your own goal setting history.

It’s about that time of year again. The kids have just gotten through their annual Halloween candy coma, Thanksgiving plans are either being made, debated, or negotiated, and signs of Christmas are beginning to show up in the cultural background. If you’re in real estate or a related field, it’s also about the time you see the office population begin to thin out a bit. While we sit somewhere, unawares, that little voice with whom we have a love/hate relationship begins whispering less than subtle hints about sitting down to review the year’s production vs the goals you so enthusiastically and meticulously set.

You sigh. Not just cuz you know this year’s production will probably make you look like a slug who came to work late and left early every day, but also due to all those other goals you simply gave up on, hoping they wouldn’t come back to taunt you at the end of the year. I especially like the physical goals like ‘lose 30 pounds’, knowing that even if you go on a juice-only diet ’till New Year’s Eve you’ll still weigh more than when you wrote the damn goal down. 🙂

Why do millions of us set so many goals and fail so miserably so often? Is there a common denominator? I think there is, and have been making use of the principle since the 1980’s.

I’d just become a father for the first time, and was visiting Grandma and Grandpa who lived just an hour or so up highway 15. Grandma had spent her alloted time with her new grandson (Um, alloted time is code for as long as she dang well felt like.) and found me sitting alone in her old school country sized kitchen. I’d grabbed the still warm raisin bran muffins she always made when she knew I was comin’.

I just asked her straight out, “Grandma, how come I fail so miserably at most of my goals?” Her answer became a pivot point in my life.

“Daddy told me the success of any goal I set for myself would first hinge upon its congruency with who I was, and what my purposes in life were. If the goal was aligned with one of those purposes, it would almost be impossible to fail.”

Really? It’s that simple? No way. But Grandma had never steered me wrong.

In retrospect, it sure explained a lot.

It filled in some blanks for me about why my real estate production goals never quite got traction — until I moved from selling houses to the investment side. Then I took off like a rocket. But why? Specifically why?

Again — simple as pie. I hated selling homes, as I couldn’t stand the irrational subjectivity of it all. I mean seriously, the color in the rooms is all wrong? Someone get me a gun. 🙂 Yet dealing with sellers for me was a blast, even in homes. They were much more rationally results oriented, and tended to recognize reality when it bit ’em in the ass.

So when I (lucky for me) began a farm by door knocking, my goals became reality, and much sooner than the deadline I’d set.

Then there were the physical goals I’d been making for years, though Lord only knows why. They wilted on the vine by Valentine’s day. How lame is that?

Yet my goals in bodybuilding as a teenager were regularly met and surpassed. What the hell? I asked Grandma about it. She said as a teenager I had an almost unquenchable purpose in life to excel in something. Bodybuilding was not just losing weight, or eating better, cuz I was thin then, and ate pretty well too. It was my purpose to become excellent at something, and know in my heart I’d in fact become excellent.

What happened? Within three years I was approved to compete in the Mr. Teenage SoCal (California?) contest. Didn’t get within sniffin’ distance of winning, but seventh was plenty fine for me.

Do you recognize this truth in your past? Maybe your present?

Some points to ponder.

1. Though we’ve all accomplished goals incongruent with our life’s purpose, they often are hollow and disappointing. The ‘Is that it?’ feeling comes when it was a goal you really hadn’t bought into at your core.

2. Is your goal something you want? If not, they’re much more likely to fail. Stop setting goals pressed on you by others, regardless of their good intentions.

3. The only worse thing than setting a goal inflicted upon you by others, is assuming a purpose for the goal that is unrelated to any of your life purposes. An imposed purpose is almost infinitely more failure prone than an imposed goal.

4. When you set a goal in perfect harmony with one of your purposes in life, the process of attaining that goal energizes and excites you. You approach the necessary goal achieving tasks with relish instead of dread.

Goal setting begs the question then, doesn’t it? What is/are your purpose(s) in life?

That is, until you know exactly what your purpose(s) in life is, setting goals is a waste of time and energy, at least in my experience. Even if I’ve accomplished a goal that didn’t align with a known purpose — a purpose I created — it was a hollow ‘victory’ and almost always a daily death march in the process.

Next up — What Grandma had to say about figuring out my own purposes.