Once you have a burning, inescapable desire to achieve one of your most ambitious goals, almost nothing can stop you…unless you stop yourself. The biggest mistake you can make once you’ve committed to your goal is to take your foot off the gas. Beware! This is a real hazard on your ambitious goal journey.
When you back off your initial pace, you could easily lose momentum. Now, you shouldn’t be sprinting all the time but if you don’t consistently and actively work on your goal, your healthy jog could be down to a barely noticeable crawl before you know it.
As you approach the crawl, you give intermittent effort and get intermittent results. Without consistent forward progress, your goal can fall ill quickly. The ups and downs of big bursts of activity followed by inevitable lulls are tiring. Discouraged by weak indicators of progress, you make half-hearted attempts to get back in the game, which of course yield poor outcomes.
When you take your foot off the gas, you also lose focus. You become easily distracted by other priorities, obligations, and idle time fillers. If you rationalize this undisciplined behavior rather than take responsibility for getting back on track, then it’s very likely that procrastination has reared its ugly head.
I’m not saying this to make you feel bad about yourself. I myself have made this mistake before – many times. Here are some reasons why this happens to the best of us:
- We don’t plan ahead for how to handle obstacles. Any worthy ambitious goal is going to take some hard work and some hard choices. Anticipating them ahead of time greatly increases your chances of success. When you’ve thought through what could happen and then made a specific plan for each scenario, you are less likely to be reactive when faced with that scenario. This is a good thing because one of the typical reactions when things get hard is to quit. Or pre-quit by taking a break that never ends.
- We put the entire burden of goal pursuit on our own shoulders, without seeking support and
resources from others. This is just plain stupid, I have to tell you. And when I say that unapologetically, the first person I’m talking to is me. I say this in such a direct manner because if I don’t, I get tempted to think I can in fact do it all on my own. Which is BS. I can’t and you can’t either.
Well, in truth, we can do it on our own. But here’s what that looks like: Going it alone puts success at risk, takes longer, is less effective, and frankly, is not fun. You can and should remain in the driver’s seat. But you shouldn’t be on this journey alone.
There is significant cost to taking your foot off the gas when it comes to pursuing your most ambitious goals:
- Low likelihood of effective course correction: No matter how good your plan is, things will happen that will threaten the integrity of your plan. That’s normal and that’s fine, except when you don’t respond to indicators that you need to take action to get back on track. When you are lone rangering your goal pursuit, there isn’t anyone who can objectively point out when something is awry, which makes it less likely for you to notice the need to do something.
- High risk of quitting: Your pride can only take you so far. Eventually, your inconsistent pacing will get the best of you and your goal will fade into the background of other priorities that demand your attention. The intensity of your burning, inescapable desire will transition to the intensity of your guilt and disappointment for letting yourself down, which leads to my next point…
- Reinforcement of doubts and self-limiting beliefs: When you embarked on your goal, you had to build the confidence you needed to take the leap. You overcame doubts and self-limiting beliefs but some still linger below the surface, waiting to strike at a weak moment. And here it is.
But, all is not lost!! Setting up a predictable accountability and support structure will give you guardrails to keep your focus and momentum, and get you back on track quickly when you start to stray off course.
When your goal means so much to you – that is, you have a burning, inescapable desire to pursue it – your best bet is to get insurance for your plan, in the form of vested support. Identify the best resource(s) to ensure you stay focused and motivated to achieve your goals. You need support from those who “get” you: what you need, what you want, and why you don’t have it yet…AND who are personally committed to enabling your success.
This is why I created the Focus & Momentum Goal Mastery program. The 6-month, online group coaching program follows my Personal Accountability Success Sequence to ensure you make consistent forward progress toward your ambitious goal(s) of choice. To learn more and enroll, click HERE.
