What To Do When You Don't Reach Your Goals

I have had to ask myself, what to do when you don’t reach your goals because…I have failed. This week has been a killer for me and I have not physically kept up as well as I wanted to. My days have been packed from 5 am until 10:30 pm and I had only a few hours each evening to get the next day’s work prepped. I had big goals for this week, as I had a lot to pack into those few hours. By the time we got home each evening, my kids were also exhausted. After dinner and showers, they were pretty ready to drop into bed too. We did not squeeze in family fun…and I am disappointed.

I didn’t reach my goal of doing something fun with the family every day this month. I am frustrated and discouraged, but this is not the first time I have not reached a goal. What is there to do when you don’t reach your goals? I guess I can either berate myself out of disappointment, or find a better way!

When you don’t reach your goals, it can be a good thing! First of all, it shows that you are thinking big and not underestimating your abilities. That’s great! Secondly, it allows the opportunity to evaluate the strategy we used to reach our goals, and then move forward, ready to hit those goals next time. Third, it keeps us humble. If you go around setting practical and attainable goals, that’s actually great to start with, but when you hit our goals every time, two things happen.

First, it might go straight to your head. You do not want arrogance and pride clouding your mind! Pride comes before the fall…so don’t make God humble you. Second, you get bored because nothing is a challenge. Our brains need challenging! Without challenge, our motivation goes downhill quickly! So, these five things are important when you don’t reach your goals. Challenge yourself to do them!

What to do When You Don’t Reach Your Goals:

Get back up—

Last night, before going to bed, I looked around at all the unfinished work. I had a specific checklist of things that needed to get done before I went to bed, but I also knew I needed to be up early and that my body was quitting on me. There were a lot of things left on the checklist! In fact, I wondered what I actually had accomplished!

And as my daughters went upstairs to bed, I thought about how impatient I had been as I hurriedly got them out of the tub and dressed for bed, snapping at them to “Hurry up!” It was actually the first time our entire family had been under one roof all week, and there was honestly no thought of family-fun! It didn’t even make the checklist, much less actually get checked off. Ugh. But before I labeled myself a complete and total failure, I decided to take a step back, see the things I have accomplished, and remind myself that today is a new day.

I don’t have to throw it all down the toilet and call the whole thing a failure. We have made some fantastic memories this month and spent a lot of time having fun together! One week of only hit and miss family-fun isn’t going to define the entire month. So, this morning, I got back up, ready to meet my goals today!

Redirect—

A mom has to redirect nearly a hundred times a day or more. It’s so important! I am the type of person who just wants to throw in the towel altogether when things come up and I’m not able to meet my goals. Yes. It’s gross. Why does my brain go immediately to the failure? Why don’t I ever focus on the goals I have met? Whatever the reason, it needs to change!

I have learned that being willing to adjust and redirect is absolutely necessary for meeting goals! If you don’t, you will never find success because there will ALWAYS be a thousand things to deter you from your focus.

Evaluate Progress, not Perfection—

Y’all, this is a HANG-UP for me! I am the person who looks around a disastrous house and thinks, “I don’t have time to clean this the “right” way—meaning, drawers and cupboards organized; everything dusted; floors done; etc.—so I might as well just sit down and eat a bag of potato chips.” Yep. My brain goes straight to potato chips!

I am also the person who sets month-long goals like this one, and if I fail 1 day, out of 30, I will call it a total fail and a waste.

You can relate, right? I think we all can. In school, if you got a 29/30, what did you immediately look for? The one you got wrong. Where is that lost point that kept me from perfection?!?

Nope. Not today! I am learning that a 1/30 fail is actually a 29/30 success! Yes, I’m still working on that and I have to remind myself daily—Progress, not perfection. (By the way, this is an IMPERATIVE concept to keep in mind in regards to your children too!)

RElated: How to Overcome Perfectionism

Remind Yourself of the “Why”—

Why did you set that goal in the first place? What is the reward for meeting the goal? What part of the reward did you receive and how can you achieve more next time? Who misses out when you don’t reach your goal?

Asking yourself these questions can help you evaluate your progress, but also can help motivate you to crush that goal next time.

My goal is to be a mom who is less focused on tasks that need completing and more focused on children who need parenting in the form of love and time. When I don’t reach my goal, we all miss out! But there is great reward in the progress I’ve made, so I need to keep trying and I’ll keep improving.

Re-set the strategy, not the goal—

Sometimes, it’s necessary to re-evaluate your goals to be sure they are attainable. Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay to dream big, and most big goals are attainable if you break them into smaller steps. However, there are just some goals that are not doable.

When my son was two or three years old, he asked me what he could be when he grew up. I, of course, gave the standard answer: “You can be anything you want to be when you grow up!”

He replied, “Well, if that’s really true, I’m going to be a tractor.” And then wait for it… “See? That’s actually not true, Mom.”

My little loop-hole finding toddler.

My daughter, on the other hand, asked a similar question: “Mommy, can I be a doctor when I grow up?”

“Of course!”

She said, “Can you make me a doctor?”

“No. You have to go to school and work really hard to become a doctor.”

She thought for a moment before saying, “Oh. I’ll just be an old lady in the nursing home then.”

Yep! That’s my little overachiever!

The point is that there are some goals, but very few that are unattainable, as my son proved to me when he was two. (No, I guess you cannot be a tractor when you grow up!)

But most of the time, we need to evaluate the strategy we used to reach our goal that failed and not the goal. My daughter chose to evaluate and change the goal to something that required less work. Instead, when you don’t reach your goals, look at what you can change about the way you went about it.

My problem this week was not scheduling the family time in! We were out of routine; Some of our kids were here and there during the week; and family-fun took its place on the back burner without my recognition. I didn’t see that I was doing that until last night! So, as my dad always says, “Learn and live!”

I’m ready to pick myself up, dust myself off, and move forward. I’ve had a pretty successful month, overall so far, so it’s not time to dwell on the goals I didn’t achieve. After all, I have made great progress this month!