setting goals, Why you are not setting goals; 4 reasons

Goal setting is something we have been told to do and taught since we were young kids. Perhaps you think that the goal setting term is overused and undervalued. But I want to reshape your focus and start selling you on goals and why you need them.

I first want to back up my selling points with some pretty amazing facts that were collected from “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School,” by Mark McCormack.

In the book, “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School,” Mark McCormack informs the reader about a study that was conducted on the students of the Harvard MBA program in 1979. During that MBA program, the students were asked two questions:

1. Have you set clear written goals for your future?

2. Have you made plans to accomplish them?

The results were pretty eye-opening. 84% of the students who took the survey had no specific goal written or set in their mind. 13% had goals but they did not write them down and only 3% had a written goal with a plan set in place.

In 1989, ten years later, the same students were asked questions related to setting up goals ten years earlier.

(After you read this part of the article, you will say to yourself, “Self, I think I am going to start setting goals with a written plan.”)

The 13 percent of the class who had unwritten goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84 percent who had no goals at all. The 3% of students who had written goals were making, on average, 10 times the amount of the other 97% combined.

WOW! Thank you, Harvard Business MBA program, for taking time to conduct and report this study. Now you might be thinking, well, that was back in 1979; things have changed. I now have apps that help me set goals on the go.

Yes, you are right. Your app on your phone helps you set goals, but does it make you follow the plan or is it something that you use to pass time and make yourself feel important?

Like I stated above, I want to sell you on the goals program. But before I can sell you on setting goals, I want to break down why you don’t set goals in the first place.

There are four proven reasons why you don’t set goals.

#1 Fear. As you know, fear is always an issue when it comes to out-of-the-box thinking. Related to setting goals there are three main fear points. First is fear of failure. What is going to happen if you take time to set this goal but you don’t complete or finish it? Will you feel depressed? Will you feel ashamed? No one can answer those questions but you.

Currently what you might be thinking is: If I don’t set a goal, I won’t fail. But as you can see from the example performed by Harvard Business School MBA program, it will help. The second reason is fear of judgment. What is going to happen if you set this goal and try to reach it and along the way you might have to stay home and study instead of party with friends? That is the judgment factor that sounds easy to overcome but it’s not. I have experienced that firsthand when I started making my first YouTube vidoes.

The third one is fear of success. You might be laughing. It’s a major problem. People like to hang with a certain group of other people. If they become successful, they will feel out of place knowing they are successful while the people they are with want to become successful.

#2 Poor Self Image. How does goal setting relate to self image? It’s a bigger deal than you think. Poor self image has an effect on everything you do in life. Examples range from getting that job, finding a boy or girlfriend, being at a social event…and the list goes on and on. If you have a bad reflection of yourself, the last thing you will do with your life is start setting goals. You need to clean up the image you have of yourself before you start setting goals. One of your goals should be to have a much more positive outlook on yourself. I will explain more about this in an upcoming video.

#3. You think you don’t need goals. Yes, there are many people right now who don’t feel they need to set goals. They may already have a decent job, enjoy their spouse, like their home, they enjoy the weekends, and they have money left over to go on a few vacations each year. Why set goals when you feel you have it all? That is a great question, but if you are still reading this article I bet you want more than what you have right now. If you want the secret sauce to having it all, it starts with setting goals.

#4. You don’t know how. This is the main reason why people don’t set them in the first place; they don’t feel they have the tools, tips, or an outline to set up a goal for success. Setting goals is not just thinking of the goal and running after it. Setting goals take a proven system from start to completion.

Goal setting is a process that will work if you let it. Over the next few videos I will show you how to break down barriers holding you back and how to set up goals for success. Make setting goals part of your life to get everything in your life that you want.