Identifying the Obstacles and creating Strategies to Help you Keep Going

Here we are knee-deep in our goals, we’ve mapped them out, we’ve made time to focus on them, and we’re making momentum towards them, right? In a perfect world, with no distractions, other people, things or light, maybe…But, in the real world, we have hundreds of things competing for our attention on the daily: kids, our boss, our partner, friends, pets or lack of any of these. 

How’s a person s’posed to reach a goal, I mean, ever? How do you maintain the Motivation to even find the time in your day to go for what YOU want long term, when the short term seems so urgent? What are your Thoughts about this? What are your Obstacles to actually putting yourself and your goals first?

Let’s look at each of these and how they fit together to make a solid plan for success.

1. Motivation Procrastination – can you have both and still get it all done?
2. Your Thoughts create your Mindset – are you intentionally creating a dangerous minefield or a lush garden?
3. Strategies for your Obstacles – a worksheet to plan out intentional Strategies for your most common Obstacles

1. Motivation Procrastination – can you have both and still get it all done?

There are two reasons why people want to improve on something. One is intrinsic motivation, a drive for personal growth and a desire to achieve something for yourself.  Success is much higher for this reason.  The second motivation is external, and is driven by the fear of not being enough as compared to some external benchmark, a need for self esteem or self confidence.

And guess what? When procrastination shows up, which motivation strategy wins? The internal one every time!  Which will really come down to the why of what you’re doing. This is also super relevant to leaders and their style of leading. It will always come down to “why are we doing this and what’s in it for me or the organization as a whole and how can I contribute?” When you have a great leader, you know the why, the North Star, where you fit in, what you bring to the table, and what you have to do to stretch towards success.  

This is what keeps you going when it’s a Sunday afternoon, and you’re checking your work email to see if that communication you drafted has been approved, so you can send it out at 7am to everyone and keep the ball rolling towards the goal you are all working on. 

Or if you’re a business owner, and you need to write your blog posts, your Weekly Wednesday Wisdom emails and schedule all of your social posts on the weekend, but your girlfriends are all going to brunch, what to do?  It’s the intrinsic motivation of knowing your post could help one person reach their goal this year, change their life and ripple out to their family and their community and create a new generation of successful women helping each other!

If you have an external need to succeed, that still works, but only for a little while, it’s a short term, white-knuckle kind of commitment that can lead to burn out and comparison over time. Which will eventually become so painful, you stop reaching for your longer term goals. It will always come down to your why, is it for you or someone else?  

Try this 3-minute exercise and answer these questions: 

1. Why are you doing this goal? 
2. Who or what is it all for?
3. What will I lose if I don’t do it?

This exercise can be repeated as many times as it takes to get to an internal reason for why you want this goal, keep going until you get there, it has the power to carry you over the finish line.

2. Your Thoughts create your Mindset – are you intentionally creating a dangerous minefield or a lush garden?

When you have a goal to create something that has never existed before, it could be your next promotion at work, new clients for your business or even losing that last 10 pounds that you still have hanging on long after your kids have started college.  How you think about your goal to create it will have a remarkable affect on your success – whether positive or negative.

Let’s take creating a Portal for your customers as your goal this year. You want a one-stop shop for all things for their goal setting, sticking with it, and succeeding, then celebrating them along the way.  At first, you’re super excited about the outcomes you will help your clients reach, you are the guide on their ride to a happier, healthier life full of celebrations.  

Then, you begin having thoughts like, wow, look how Corinne has set up her portal (nevermind she’s been in business for 14 years, and you’re just starting), she really has this all figured out, I have no idea where to start, I’m overwhelmed, this will never work, what was I thinking?

Helpful or a Minefield of cow patties?

Let’s try an intentional mindset strategy, something like this. Same thought, wow, Corinne has set up a great portal, what can I learn from her, I mean, she’s been in business for 14 years.  Maybe I can use some of her examples in my own portal, I love her structure, how can I structure my portal in a similar way that helps streamline my content and get it into the hands of my students?  Wow, this is actually fun, I think I can do this business thing after all!

Notice the shift here isn’t into something perfect, it’s simply asking the question, “Can I just” learn, try, have fun doing this thing without overwhelm.  This is how you begin to plant the seeds of a lush mindset, and how you keep going without comparison or judgement. Click Here to read more about mindset and your internal Soundtrack.

3. Strategies for your Obstacles – a worksheet to plan out intentional Strategies for your most common Obstacles

In our final destination of accomplishing our goals and overcoming procrastination in favor of motivation and lush thoughts, I have one more trick for you, it’s a vintage sales strategy I used when I sold corporate copiers for Ricoh and Kodak after graduating college.  It’s listing out your most common obstacles for getting things done and a strategy for each one.

When I sold copiers, I heard this one a lot: “oh we just can’t afford new technology right now” my response was always, “how will you continue to compete with your biggest competitor if you don’t have the tech today? What is it costing you in lost business every minute this month?” Also, I had a very competitive leasing agreement:)  

I worked on these obstacles every day, as I walked around the South Loop, found myself stuck for ½ an hour in old elevators, sat in the waiting rooms of countless potential clients, and worked on my responses to what I thought they might use as “not right now”.  And most months, I met my sales quota, but it never got easier for me, it was always a slog, I was extrinsically motivated to get on the sales board, to get the bonus, etc. 

When what I really wanted was to provide value, develop a relationship, truly make a difference for my customers. I eventually discovered this would never be possible selling copiers, so I moved on to working in a cable company and selling pay-per-view events where I met Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson, way more fun!

You can do this for yourself and your goals, too.  We all buffer when it comes to our goals, it’s completely normal. If you started the year going to the gym, it was easy at first, you laid out your clothes, planned your work out time and you went. Now that the newness and novelty has worn off, how do you get it back?  Create a Strategy for your Obstacle!

Start by listing out the time you are spending buffering instead of attending to your goals. Do you sleep an extra hour now that you’re not going to the gym? Are you staying up late to watch all the new episodes of White Lotus, again?  Are you avoiding your gym friends so they won’t ask you about where you’ve been?  Add this time up, maybe it’s 3 hours, how much time do you spend at the gym? How can you flip the script?

Return to your commitment of Why you want this goal first, start there, if it’s to rebuild a healthy, resilient, flexible body so you sleep better at night, and you can get on the trampoline with your kids this summer, start with that!  Then move on to what is getting in your way, like late night Netflix, running errands for everyone else, just not feeling like it, or having chocolate is easier right now. 

Finally, create a list of strategies to overcome these obstacles, like maybe I’ll set the tv timer to turn off after an hour, I’ll have groceries and Amazon deliver what I need, listen to fun music and get my mojo back on track, and when I get back from this workout, I’m having a Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie with Cafe Mocha Greens:)

As a quick reminder, you can get your own Productivity worksheet here! Would you like a laser coaching session to get clear on your obstacle strategy? Click here to schedule that today:)