Missed Goals
Fact: a quick type into Google’s search engine will give you 306,000,000 results for “setting work goals”. Wowzers! How many of those articles do you think also give advice for what to do when those goals are actually missed? Where are the articles that dig deep into how to learn from failure? I’m not going to go through all 306,000,000 articles to find out, but a quick scan leads me to easily deduce that it isn’t many of them. Culturally here in America, we’re a little addicted to success so while that’s no surprise, it isn’t necessarily healthy.
The best thing any teacher ever told me was this: “You’re going to fail.” At first I was a bit taken aback. What did he mean, I’m going to fail? Wasn’t he supposed to say stuff like, “I believe in you!” or “I know you’re going to do amazing things!” What was this?
He didn’t say it just once. He repeated it. And then he said, “And that’s okay. That’s your job. Try stuff and be okay with failing. Accept that it’s going to happen. And when it does, learn from it. Move on.” Wouldn’t you know, it ended up being the most memorable thing a teacher ever said to me. I remember those words and that moment clearly to this day. And I’ve carried that lesson into my life every day since.
What else can we do about missed goals? Well, there are a few options (McDonald, 2019).
Weigh the cost of walking away from the goal completely. This is a valid option but one that we recommend thinking through completely before you choose it. It’s easy to want to give up on a bad day or when we feel ourselves buckling under the pressure but that’s NOT the day to give up. Instead, give it time. If you still think that abandoning the goal is the right choice down the road, then you can.
Explore why you think you didn’t hit your goal and what you could do differently to make sure you do hit it this time around. Do you need more accountability or was something out of your control that affected things like sickness, finances, or a family emergency?
Celebrate every step that brings you closer to the success of your goal. You don’t have to wait until you hit that ultimate goal to celebrate yourself. Instead, set small markers and give yourself a well deserved pat on the back at those points. Trust me, it’ll help. We need all the encouragement we can get, even from ourselves!
Lastly, put it in context and remember who you are. This one goal doesn’t define you. You aren’t a loser because you didn’t hit it this time, and you don’t suddenly become an amazing person if you do manage to hit it at some point in the future. Work hard to resist the temptation to link your identity to the outcome of goals. You are valuable and amazing all on your own! In fact, I think the missed goals tend to make us that much more interesting and relatable!
Reference: McDonald, S. (2019). When you miss your goal. James & Stacy Blog. Retrieved from https://jamesandstacy.com/2019/06/when-you-miss-your-goal/.
Challenges/Points:
It’s important to know how to respond to missed goals since all of us are going to fail at different points in our lives and probably more than once.
Learning from our failed goals is one of the most important things we can take away from those experiences.
Missed goals have the potential to build our character and remind us that our value doesn’t depend on them, it’s just a hard but important part of the process.
Questions:
How does it feel to know that you will fail at things in the future?
Have you failed to meet a goal at this point in your life? What was it and how did you handle the failure?
If failure is particularly hard for you to stomach, it’s worth taking the time to explore why. What do you think it says about you if you fail? Try finishing this sentence: “If I fail, then…”
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