Why Not Reaching Your Goals Doesn't Make You a Failure (and How to Move Forward Anyway)
“There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask, “What if I fall?”
Oh, but my darling,
What if you fly?” ~ Erin Hanson
Ditch the All-or-Nothing Mindset and Embrace the Power of Progress
Have you ever stared at a long to-do list, feeling stuck in the fear of not accomplishing everything perfectly? Or maybe you let a single setback derail your entire plan, leaving you discouraged and defeated?
Fear of failure is a powerful force.
It can hold us back from pursuing our dreams and achieving our goals.
Not reaching your goals doesn't make you a failure.
The Power of Progress, Not Perfection
If you want something to change in your life, it’s not enough just to recognise and understand the problem. You have to do something differently if you want to see a different result.
And yet, so many of us are scared to commit to an action or a goal in case we fail.
I get it.
It’s actually a completely normal, rational and logical response.
Fearing failure keeps us safe.
If we're scared to take a risk and do something new, we never have to step outside our comfort zone and into the unknown.
Our brains hate the unknown. The unknown is unpredictable and full of potential threats and dangers and things that can kill us.
Goals aren't a rigid finish line. They're not the destination. They're stepping stones on a journey towards what's important to you.
Every attempt, every step forward, teaches you valuable lessons and helps you grow.
The Upside of Taking Action (Even When It Doesn't Go Exactly According to Plan)
Taking action, even if it doesn't lead to immediate "success," has incredible benefits.
It builds resilience, teaches valuable lessons, and boosts your confidence.
It's infinitely more valuable than staying stagnant out of fear. Here's why:
Growth Mindset: Every attempt, every challenge you take on, is an opportunity to learn and grow. Maybe you didn't run that 10k you set out for, but you still built your endurance and discovered a love for running outdoors.
Building Confidence: Each step you take, even a small one, builds your confidence. You start to believe in your own ability to take on challenges and achieve things you once thought were impossible.
Resilience: Facing setbacks and overcoming them makes you stronger and more resilient. You learn to bounce back from discouragement and keep moving forward.
As Nelson Mandela said, "Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by the times I fell down and got back up." Every step you take, every obstacle you overcome, is a victory in itself.
Every big leap I've taken in life has been scary.
I was terrified when I left the RAF. It’s all I had known for my adult life - my entire life, really, thanks to growing up in a military family.
But I was far more scared of suffocating and stagnating than I was of the unknown on the other side. I was terrified of staying comfortable and regretting it.
We cannot allow fear of failing to stop us from spreading our wings.
Making Your Goals More Achievable (and Less Scary!)
So how can you ease away from the fear of failure and start making progress towards your goals? Here are a few tips:
Get specific. “I want to get outside more” is not helpful. How much is more? How will you know you’ve done enough? And that is a critical question for anyone (like me) with perfectionist tendencies. Because it will be enough unless you specify how much. An example for a recent client: moving from “I want to walk more” to “I’m going to go for a 30-minute walk every day at 3pm” - this would have been even better had we specified where.
Be under-ambitious. I like everything to be perfect. Well maybe not perfect but pretty damn close. That means that I often end up not doing anything. I don’t write as much as I would like to because I don’t know how to make it perfect. I’m never going to help anyone or change the world with perfect yet non-existent work. So I’m aiming for done. 60% work that is in the world is far more likely to make a difference than A* work that never even made it out of my head.
Get a minimum baseline. I often talk to clients about doing just one press-up [insert other activities here]. You can always do just one. But if you set yourself the goal of doing 50, chances are there will be lots of mornings where you don’t do any. Setting your baseline too high risks this kind of all-or-nothing thinking: well, I can’t run 10km today so there’s no point me running at all. Sound familiar? Set a realistic minimum baseline; by realistic, I mean something you can do even your lowest energy day when you’re hungover or sick. There’ll be plenty of days where you do way more than that but on the days you don’t, you will still do something. And that’s how you...
Make it part of your identity. A goal or a new behaviour needs to become part of you. You want to be able to say “I’m the kind of person who….”. So in the early days of trying a new habit, the goal isn’t necessarily to be more healthy by drinking 2 litres of water, it’s to be able say “I’m the kind of person who…”.
Schedule it. You have to make space for your goal. Get in the diary. Get it in the diary before anything else. It’s non-negotiable. Start showing up for yourself and your priorities. You’ll start to build trust with yourself, that sense that you have your own back when it comes to things that are important to you.
Give yourself less time. This sounds counterintuitive but Parkinson’s Law states "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion". You’ll be amazed at how much you can achieve if you give yourself an hour and only an hour.
Treat it like an experiment. The fear of failing at a goal comes when we set it up as something that is either achieved (good) or not (bad). But what if we treated it like an experiment? You have an assumption, a hypothesis, that doing this action is going to have a certain effect. Normally, that effect is ultimately to make you feel good. So let’s test that! Don a white lab coat….okay, you don’t need the lab coat but you do need to personify your favourite scientist. Try phrasing your goal as “I wonder what happens if I do X…”. Then record and monitor what happens and see what you learn. Days when you don’t achieve your goal become the perfect opportunity to learn - why didn’t it happen?
What's the purpose? One of the challenges I set myself in 2018 was to run 1000 miles. But the purpose was never about the number. It was to help me cultivate a regular running habit rather than my usual 3-months-on-3-months-off pattern. I’m achieving the purpose of my goal even if I don’t hit my target. I am not a terrible, lazy person if I only run 900 miles, if I only run 600 miles. That’s a lot more miles than 0 miles.
Remember, the journey towards your goals is just as important as the destination. You only have one life - enjoy it! Learn from it, celebrate your progress, and don't let setbacks define you. After all, sometimes the most valuable lessons are learned from the stumbles along the way.
Ready to ditch the fear and start making progress?
Check out my (perfectionist's) guide to setting goals or download my free seasonal planning workbook to help you set better goals.