Why Do Most People Fail to Meet There Goals and Objectives?

Also: Setting Personal Objectives

While there are probably no firm statistics on the subject, I think most of us would agree that the majority of people never achieve their goals and objectives. In fact, the same reasons for this failure can also be the reasons why many never really have any objectives in the first place.

To set objectives, someone needs to have ambitions, but not all people have any ambition at all. They may be either content, resigned, or are brainwashed into believing that they have a fixed role in a vast machine, from which there is no escape. Some, too, have probably never even thought about it. They have just done what they have done, and will do what they will do, as if they were an end product of a factory production line; products with no independent thought or purpose, just a spare part to be fixed to a larger product, which itself may be fixed to an even larger product.

The Odds Against Achieving Objectives

For those who do have any sort of ambition, objectives, and dreams, the odds can be stacked against them. There are many reasons for this:

1. The education systems of most Western countries do not train young people to think for themselves. Social pressures are therefore in favour of perpetuating the production line of subservient workers, the proverbial small cogs in large wheels. The politicians and their political parties who govern these countries have no reason to upset the status quo. The last thing politicians want is a generation of students who are powerful and independent in the use of their minds.

2. From the student days to the early days of a career, the vast majority just follow the trodden path of their parents and peers. If their parents and friends are not independent achievers, then the chances are they will not be either. To even set personal objectives at all, whether formally written down or loosely in their mind, would probably set them apart from the majority. But even then, it is like wading through mud to break free from the norm and achieve ambitious goals.

3. The best time to establish a pattern of setting goals and reaching them is while young. Young people, of course, are more easily distracted than their older counterparts. Whether it is through a volatile love life or an excess of parties and other social activities, achievement can easily take a back seat in their lives. Try to step outside of that norm, and they may well feel peer pressure forcing them to conform. The fact is, most people, of any age, cannot deal with being different from everyone else. To set ambitious objectives and achieve them needs a firm degree of independence, both in action and thought.

4. To set and achieve personal goals requires a lot of motivation, and that is not something that is in plentiful supply. For many in the material West, motivation equates to money, but money itself is not a competent motivator. Why go to the trouble of setting goals and working flat out to achieve success and get that money? That is something of a scenic route; there is, after all, a direct line to money in the West, in the UK and US in particular, and that is the Credit Line. The credit disease is itself can demotivate when it comes to actually doing something that will earn you money.

5. By and large, people are lazy, and cannot be motivated to work hard for themselves and set themselves apart. Once in a job or career, it is so easy to slip into an auto pilot life, pivoted around a large mortgage, cars you cannot really afford, a daily grind of commuting to a job where you have no independence and can be fired at the drop of a hat. But, it's your life and you keep it that way until forced to do otherwise.

6. Achievement in most fields involves set backs along the way. Most people are impatient and unrealistic, and if success is not a smooth path or instant, they soon give up and retreat to their safe, humdrum, non independent existence. They may never then wake from their slumber, until one day they wake up to find themselves near to retirement, made redundant, heavily in debt, and with no savings or investment. That is a common path for those not determined to achieve true independence, both financial and in thought.

Achieving worthwhile goals, which you really desire and will bring you long term financial freedom and wealth, requires vision, determination, an ability to bounce back from set backs, persistence and a lot of self belief and confidence. It also means ignoring the doubters, who one day look upon you with admiration and envy, but for now are making you look small with their flash credit driven car and 110% mortgaged house which they will never really own.

For those who can overcome all those obstacles to achievement, life can eventually become very sweet indeed, and the negative influences, the doubters, will fade into the distant past.