4 Steps To Take When You Don’t Meet a Goal

Have you ever felt discouraged when you don’t meet a goal? If so, this episode is for you. Be encouraged as I share four steps you can take when you don’t meet a goal.

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In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

4 steps you can take when you don’t meet a goal.
How the LEAD process can help you.
When to readjust your goals.
And much more!

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Can’t listen right now? Read the transcript below:

I have a question for you. Have you ever felt discouraged or disappointed that you have not met a goal? Hi, my name is Shelley Hitz, I’m an author, coach, and business strategist, and I’m the creator of AuthorAudienceAcademy.com, I’ve written over 40 bestselling books, but today I want to talk to you about what to do when you don’t meet a goal.

I was working with some of my inner circle members today on Business Boost Calls when one of them told me she was really discouraged because she didn’t meet her goal. So, I thought, “you know, this would be a great topic for a live broadcast.” Have you ever felt that way? If so type “yes” in the comments and let me know what you’ve done, what has helped you when you don’t meet your goal?

I have four steps I want to share with you, that I shared with my inner circle client today.

Step One: Re-evaluate

The first step, if you don’t meet your goal, I recommend you doing is to re-evaluate. Sometimes we try to bite off more than we can chew. Can anyone relate? Oh my goodness, I think I can do a lot more than what I typically can do. I think the reason is, we think, “OK, I can just fill in all these spots, I can do all these things.” What ends up happening is it takes longer than we expect, obstacles happen, we have to take care of things we didn’t expect, and we just don’t get done what we plan to get done.

The LEAD Process

What I find happens is, when you set this goal and then you can’t reach it, it really brings discouragement, or disappointment, or you start beating yourself up, and that’s what was happening with my client today. She was like, “I should have been able to reach that goal, I should have been able to do that.” So I told her, “let’s stop, let’s take a breath, let’s re-evaluate.” What I recommend is using the LEAD Process. LEAD is an acronym I’ve created to help you really just get more focus. I’ve talked about it many times, and what I recommended her to.

The L in LEAD is Locating. Locating is like a brain storm, or a brain dump. I told her to set the timer for 10 or 15 minutes and write everything you’re doing right now, everything you’re responsible for, every volunteer activity, everything you’re responsible for at home, and be able to write all of that down. Then, you’re re-evaluating, “what am I doing right now, what am I responsible for?” The E in LEAD is Eliminate. “Is there anything that I can let go of?”

The A is Automate and the D is Delegate. What I really wanted her to do was just a brain dump. Figure out what it is you’re responsible for, what is it you are doing right now, and write it all out and see, “is there anything that I can let go of for a season, so I can make progress on my book, so I can move forward on my goals.” Maybe it’s a volunteer activity that you say, “I’ve been doing this for years, I love it, I believe in it, but for these next three months I’m just going to have to say no, not be involved in that for right now.”

Step Two: Pivot and Shift

Now, the other thing, the second step, is to pivot and shift. So once you re-evaluate, once you really see where you’re at and if there is nothing you can let go, then there is nothing you can let go. If that’s the case, many times I think, we procrastinate, or we don’t meet our goals, because we simply have too much on our plate. We simply have too much going on, anyone relate? Just type an “amen” in the comments. I have been there.

Sometimes you just need to re-evaluate your goals. The pivot and shift step 2 is, do you need to extend your goal? Do you need to change your expectations of what you can actually get done? So that was really freeing for her, to be able to say, “oh I can actually pivot, I can re-evaluate, and I can change this goal because I actually have more going on than I realized.”

Step Three: Big Leaps vs. Inching Forward

The third step is to really think about it, instead of just big leaps—I think a lot of times we just think, “I want to have this big leap, I want to do this big thing!”—I want you to to think about inching forward, making progress every week. What can you do this week to make progress, instead of just feeling overwhelmed and then getting nothing done, what can you get done this week? What I encouraged her to do, and something you may want to do, is look at your week and say, “OK, I’m going to block off this chunk of time to be able to make progress on my goals.” It may be an hour, it may be three hours, it may be a half an hour, I don’t know what your schedule is right now. Guard that time, just say, “nothing is going to take this time.” So that you can at least have that chunk of time every week to be moving forward.

Think of it like inching forward, inching forward, inching forward, those consistent actions over time are going to lead to some of your greatest results. Amazing. So, I encourage you to think about it. Step 3 is thinking about inching forward every week, and not just always the big leaps. The big leaps are important too.

Step Four: Start a Prayer Team

Step 4 I recommended for her, she’s a Christian author, I recommended that she start a prayer team. I had a podcast on this topic recently—that you can listen to at shelleyhitz.com or authoraudience.com, you can find it on iTunes, Stitch, or wherever you listen to podcasts—all about setting up a small prayer team. When she really started to tell me what was going on I realized, this sounds like more than just having too much on your plate, this sounds like there is a spiritual battle going on here.

The enemy was wanting her to feel like regretful of the things she hasn’t done, and just all of this mindset stuff. Which, if you’re a Christian, and you’re a Christian author, and you have a message that has an eternal impact, there is a very good possibility this could be a spiritual battle.

I gave her these action steps:

Step 1 to re-evaluate, to see what is she doing, is there anything she can let go of

Step 2 pivot and shift, shift her expectations, shift the goal, the deadline of when that first draft will be done, according to everything she has going on.

Step 3 is to think about inching forward, making that consistent progress every single week.

Step 4 is to form a prayer team.

If you’re watching the replay you can also comment, leave questions, leave your advice, what advice do you have for people when they’re struggling with not meeting a goal? Share that in the comments below.