7 Reasons You're Not Achieving Your Ultimate Goal (And How to Fix Them)

Hello, Believe Nation. Today we're going to talk about the 7 reasons why you haven't achieved your ultimate goal. 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So I get a lot of entrepreneurs writing into me, asking me comments on YouTube, sending me snaps and Instagram questions. They're basically saying, I have these goals, I know what I want to do, I have this vision, It's so clear in my head, but I'm not following through, I'm not doing the work. I haven't been able to achieve my goal yet, and I thought I would have already done it by now. What's the problem? So I'm gonna share with you the 7 reasons why you haven't achieved your goal, and hopefully, if some of them resonate with you, you can fix it so that you can achieve your goals this year. Reason number 1 is you're afraid of failure. This is one of the biggest reasons why people don't get started. It's easy to think of an idea, it's easy to put yourself there, you're on that island 'cause you've sold this company, you've had so much success and you just see the impact that you're having and you're winning awards or whatever it is and it's fun to kind of live in that fantasy land for a while. But then the other side comes in when you're afraid, like, what if it doesn't work? What if I lose my money? What if, you know, things go under? What if I lose my house? What if, what if, what if, what if? What if my relationship falls apart? All of these negativities that come in. And so understanding that that is a story that you're holding yourself back on, 'cause most people, are afraid of failure, but they'll mask it with some practical reason why they can't do it. That's the biggest reason. That's the biggest thing that holds people really back. Really, you're just afraid to go out and do it. You're afraid of failing, but you've convinced yourself that it's for a practical reason that you're not going to get started. You tell yourself that you don't have the education, you don't have the money, or now's not the right time, or you're just too busy right now, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Some kind of reason, right? But really, at the core of it, it's just You're afraid of failing. And so recognizing that all the excuses that you have in front of you are just BS excuses, that other people have already had way more success than you with way fewer resources and education and talent than you have within yourself. You have nobody to blame but yourself, and recognizing that it's just fear that's holding you back allows you to address the problem, allows you to mitigate the fear, to minimize it, to go after your goal and do something not necessarily on a big scale yet, but taking small steps. So every step along the way, you're reducing more fear, reducing more for— Fear, reducing more fear. Understand the real reason that's causing you to not go forward on your goal and break through those BS excuses that you're telling yourself. Number 2 is you're afraid of being judged. This one is a super scary one too. It's not just a fear of failing, it's a fear of failing in front of other people. What will people think if you don't do well? What will people think about your idea if it's not perfect? What will people think if you make a YouTube video and you post it And it's not perfect, it's not great, it's not the best you can do. What will your parents think, or your husband or wife think, or your kids think, or your high school classmates think, or university friends think if your thing doesn't work out? And what it forces people to do is then play small, because you're so worried about what other people will think that when you want to start coming up here, you smash yourself back down. There's a Japanese phrase, I'm gonna butcher it, but there's a saying basically where you, uh, if you're a nail sticking out, you get hit back down, right? So it's conformity. If you want to live a life of conformity, then you're always going to be exactly like everybody else around you. Nobody's going to ever create anything unique because you're all trying to be vanilla because you're afraid of being judged by somebody else. And so again, recognizing that that's your fear and developing the muscle to break through it. Whenever, for me, whatever I try to do, when I'm, when I'm worried that I'm being judged When I'm worried about somebody else's opinion of me, then I force myself to go through with it. Not in a way that's offending them, it's not to show it in their face, say, "Hey, look what I did," but me on my path. So I've told the story about when I was walking to Toronto Dance Salsa and I had music on, right? And I'm bouncing, I'm grooving, I'm driving on the street, and then I got to the busy intersection and I started, I started doing it in much smaller movements. I just subconsciously We do this subconsciously. We fear judgment subconsciously. And when I recognize that, then I force myself to dance big on the street again. Even as I'm doing it right now, there's people walking by me to this side, watching like, "What's this guy doing dancing in the studio?" Doesn't matter, right? Like, feeling that discomfort and working your way through it builds the muscle so that you could do it again and again and again, each time in more powerful ways. So anytime you feel that you are holding yourself back from doing something that you really want to do, because you're worried about being judged by somebody else, and that's a signal in my mind at least that you need to go out and do it. You have to force yourself to feel that discomfort and break through it so that you're building the muscle so the next time it doesn't happen, and the next time you're stronger, and the next time you're able to break through and do something even bigger. Fear of somebody else's judgment of you should not be the reason why you don't chase your dream. Number 3 is the fear of success. This is a crazy sounding one. Why would I fear success? A lot of people do. For the negative ones, it's easy to understand, right? You're afraid of failure, you're afraid of judgment. That's easy to understand. But why would I be afraid of success? For a lot of people, that means that they're gonna leave their situation. They may leave their family, they may leave their friends behind, they're gonna leave their community behind as they move off to some other place. And that's scary. And a lot of people will then self-sabotage. They'll reach a certain level of success and they'll sabotage themselves to fall back down because they don't wanna leave the people behind them. And again, it's an idea of playing small. Because all these people around you are not chasing their dreams, are not doing the thing that they wanna do, are not recognizing their genius level, Michael Jordan level talent at whatever they're doing, they don't wanna go off and do it, and so it makes you feel like you don't wanna go off and do it as well. And as soon as you start rising up, a lot of times people will then sabotage themselves to fall back down because it's more comfortable to be in their current environment. That's why the environment is so important. We'll touch on that a little bit later. So if you've ever reached the point where you've had some success and then you find yourself getting in your own way, ask yourself if you're afraid of success, if you're afraid of more success, if you're afraid of leaving your group behind, 'cause that limiting belief is holding you back. The number 4 reason why you haven't achieved your ultimate goal yet is you just don't care enough. A lot of people set the wrong goals. A lot of people, when you say, "What is your ultimate goal?" they come up with something that actually doesn't motivate them. They want to buy a Ferrari, that's their ultimate goal. Right, like, you don't actually care that much about buying that Ferrari. The thing that you say you care so much about, you don't actually care that much about it. Happens with a lot of people. It's one of the main reasons why entrepreneurs fail, why 80 to 90% of companies shut down, depending on whatever stat you follow, 'cause they just don't care enough about their business. They got into it for the wrong reasons. You have to love your craft. If you look at all the videos that we've done, all the different famous entrepreneurs we profiled, it's one of the most consistent messages. You have to love what you do. So if you're doing something for the wrong reason, you're never going to get to that finish line. One good way to figure it out is, if you knew you would never make money at this, would you still do it? I love helping entrepreneurs. It's in me. It's in my fabric. I love it. I would do it even if I wasn't making money. In fact, I'll Most of the time I'm not making money when I'm helping entrepreneurs. I just, I love it. It fills me up, it fuels me. And when I first started along this path, I had 3 people show up to my first free event and I thought, I'm never going to make money doing this. But I just loved it so much I had to find a way. Even though I had to do other things, this I would continue doing because I love it so much. You have to love your work that much. You have to love the person you're with that much. You have to love your life. That much. You have to love that goal that you have that much that you would do it even if it didn't make any sense, even if it never made you any money, that you would still do it. If you have that level of care, then you'll get there. But most people don't, because they pick the wrong goals. Reason number 5 is you are not consistent. This happens to so many entrepreneurs. We're not consistent. You may have one day where you're on fire and energetic and closing deals and working hard and grinding and hustling. And then the next day you're not working as hard anymore. And it's this roller coaster ride of up and working hard and then nothing, and up and working hard and then nothing. And oftentimes it may be because, you know, you read a book, you listened to a podcast, you watched a video, and that got you inspired, but you're not consistent. Consistency is going to be the key. If you look at the people who are the greatest in the world at what they do, they practiced. Whether you believe in the 10,000-hour rule or not, they practiced. They put their hours in. They worked hard. You know, I've made almost 4,000 videos on this channel. It's a lot of videos. You better get half decently good after you've done something, whatever it is, 4,000 times. And so you have to be consistent. You have to find a way to make sure that every single day, even if you have a job right now, if you have other responsibilities right now, it's fine, I get it. It's not that you have to go full-time, you have to burn the boats and forget everything else happening in your life. But it also doesn't mean that you do work only on Mondays and then the rest of the week you've got nothing else, you're busy with the rest of your life, you're not going to get anywhere. If you're practicing something once a week, you're not going to get anywhere. Has to be daily. You have to find the time to spend time daily, at least 30 to 60 minutes every single day on your business, on achieving that ultimate goal to allow the momentum to build up. Most of you aren't hitting it because you're not consistent enough. Number 6 is your environment sucks. I touched on this a little bit earlier, but the environment you're in matters. You are likely to be like your parents, you're likely to be like your friends, you're likely to be like the people around you. It's really hard to break through. How do you break through? You start changing those things. And you may say, "Well, I don't know how to hang out with different people. I don't know how to get access to them." If you're a face-to-face person, then go start to meet them. Go to events, go to conferences, go to meetups. Go to the places where the people who you want to be like, people who you want to associate with, are hanging out. Because it may not be in your backyard. It may not be on the streets where you grew up. For me, it came from books initially, and now it comes from videos. I feel like I'm hanging around Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey and the people that I profile on my channel. I feel like every time I watch their videos, a little piece of them, their thinking, their mindset, their, their way of being seeps into me, not to help me become like them, but to help me become a better version of me, to help me play a bigger game, to help me have more confidence, to help me believe more. So those are the people that I hang out with on a consistent basis because, to be honest, a lot of my friends, they're not pushing me. This happens for a lot of entrepreneurs. Your friends don't push you. Your friends respect you. Your friends might be jealous of you. Your friends might be saying what you're doing is really stupid, or they may be saying, "I wish I could do what you're doing." But who's telling you you're doing a good job and you should be doing more? Like, you should be playing way out here and you're, you're playing this small game. A lot of us don't have that because we don't have a boss. That's what a good boss does, that's what a good mentor does, is they see the untapped potential in you and help you get to where you should be as opposed to where you're limiting yourself. We don't have that a lot as entrepreneurs. We are our own boss. And yes, sometimes our clients will push us and we'll have to meet deadlines and those kinds of things, but in general, you know you could be working harder, you know you haven't reached your ceiling, and you're not pushing yourself through the discomfort to go and reach that potential. 'Cause there's nobody out there doing it for you. And so creating the environment that forces you to go out and do it whether it's finding mentors, whether it's finding new friends, whether it's watching videos, whether it's listening to podcasts, whether it's consuming books, whatever it is. Look at, look at the things that are around you, your environment. What's, what's on the wall in front of you? All of those things matter. You want to create an environment and a morning routine, especially rituals, that get you set up to do something amazing today. You've all felt those moments of boldness where you felt unstoppable, where things would be amazing for you, and then The rest of the week kind of sucked. So whenever you felt whatever was happening that got you all jazzed up and excited, whether you watch an interview or whatever it was, do that first thing every day in the morning. And you'll need to find different sources, because all you do is listen to the same video every day, you're gonna get bored of it. It may last for a week and then it's gonna lose its effect. But another video could help you, and another video can help you, and another video could help you, which is why I started the Entespresso series as a morning daily thing to give you a shot of ideas and inspiration and wisdom and energy to go and do something powerful and amazing in your business and your life today. Whether you watch the espresso series or not, it doesn't matter to me, but find something that makes you feel bold, inspired, and energetic, and do that first thing in the morning every single day to set yourself up for success. And the number 7 reason why you have not achieved your ultimate goal is just a lack of self-awareness. As I've been going through this process of helping people find their one word, I found how little people actually know about themselves, how often people have sat in an industry just because that was the practical thing to do. That's what their parents wanted them to do, or that's what they studied in university, so they just kept along that path. And people have very little self-awareness for who they actually are, what do they value. If you don't know what you stand for, then you're just going to be subject to what other people stand for. Everybody has a plan for you: your parents, your friends, your colleagues, your customers, your suppliers, your investors. Everybody has a plan for you of what you should be doing with your life that serves them. If you don't have a great plan for yourself, you're just going to be following everybody else's plan. You're never going to get anywhere amazing. And so whether you believe in finding the One Word and applying that to your life and your business, or you go some other path, the idea of self-awareness is really important. Why I find it so helpful is because I've realized that everything in my life has led up to where I am right now. And believe has always played a part in it. Believe is my one word. It's always played a part of it. My favorite songs are about believe. My favorite movie is Seabiscuit, which is about believe. My parents taught me believe. Everything that's been good in my life came through the lens of believe, but it happened at random. These random moments of greatness happened to me. When you understand what your one word is, when you have the self-awareness, then now you can take that and start planning so that these good things happen to you on purpose going forward, that you recognize them, that you start hanging around the right people, that you start making the powerful, clear decisions, that you start getting results, that you start achieving your goals. Otherwise, you're going to continue to live a random path, and you can continue to live up to other people's expectations of what they want for you instead of the life that you want for yourself. And so whether you're going with one word or you had another tool to help you, Having a self-awareness to understand who you are, what you stand for, why you're here, what the powerful thing is that you want to do makes a huge difference for your clarity, for your focus, and for your ability to follow through and actually achieving that ultimate goal for yourself. So those are my suggestions on the 7 reasons why you have not yet achieved your ultimate goal. I'd love to know, what do you guys think? What was your favorite rule and why? Did I miss an 8, 9, 10 that you want to add to the list? Let me know down in the comments. Super curious to figure out what you guys have to say. I also want to give a quick shout out to Helena Ostrowska from HelenaOstrowska.com. Thank you so much, Helena, for picking up a copy of my book, Your One Word. It really, really, really means a lot to me, and I hope you're enjoying the read. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.