5 Reasons You May NOT Achieve Your Goals This Year…
Today I was excited to hang a fresh 2025 A1 year view wall planner on my office wall, but when I stuck it up, and looked at the blank slate, and thought about all the potentials, it got me feeling… overwhelmed. So I sat down at my desk and started to journal / free write / brain dump, which I often do when I’m feeling overwhelmed. I love getting my thoughts out of my head and onto the page, where I’m able to make more sense of them.
About half a page into my rant, I wrote: “I have time, but I don’t know what to do with it. There’s so many possibilities, it’s overwhelming, then I just end up freezing and doing nothing! I waste so much time, faffing about, and I hate it. I feel disorganised and unproductive. Some goals I’ve had on repeat for years now, and still haven’t achieved them. I think the reason why I haven’t manifested these certain goals (YET!!!) is because I deep down, I don’t believe I’m worthy of them. In the past, I haven’t been committed to my goals. I let excuses, fear, unworthiness and self-doubt win. BUT NO MORE! This has to end, and no-one can change this but you. It’s not too late. Stop wasting time and start now. Your future self will thank you for it.”
When I finished writing, I immediately pulled a book from my book shelf: Atomic Habits by James Clear, without really thinking about it. I re-read over the first 2 chapters and took a bunch of notes, and it inspired me to take a different approach to my goals and mapping out my year ahead. If (like me) you’ve set goals in the past and haven’t achieved them, let’s workshop this here and now, to avoid it happening again.
5 reasons why you may NOT achieve your goals this year…
Your goals conflict with your current identity and beliefs about who you are.
You focus on outcome-based goals, and fail to look at who you no longer want to be and who you do actually want to become.
You continue to say I want this result/outcome eg. “I WANT to make more money“, rather than saying I AM a person who makes (desired amount of income).
You set goals, but fail to make any changes to your behaviours, and continue with the same unhealthy habits that don’t match your goal, nor align with the person who you truly want to be.
You give up on it too early.
What to do instead, to ensure you actually make, see and feel changes in 2025…
Notice that I didn’t say ‘what to do to ensure you achieve your goals’? This is very intentional because I’ve been guilty of all of the above when trying to achieve my goals in previous years, and as we’ve identified, it didn’t work and I’m ready to try a new way.
Re-reading the first chapters of Atomic Habits confirmed what I wrote in my journal. My goals in the past conflicted with my identity and my beliefs about who I am. And in terms of my lack of commitment, it’s because I wasn’t committed to changing my identity, so my identity kept producing the same results. It brings to mind what Dr Joe Dispenza says “Your body always follows your mind.”
Being outcome focused is out for 2025, and building identity-based habits is in! Here’s why… There are three layers of behaviour change.
Layer one = changing your outcomes, which is about changing your results.
Layer two = changing your process, which is about changing your habits and systems.
Layer three = changing your identity, which is about changing your beliefs, your worldview, your self-image, your judgements about yourself and others.
All layers are useful, but in order to build habits that last we want to build identity-based habits and start by focusing on who we wish to become, before we think about external results or outcomes.
Why focus on changing your identity, instead of setting outcome based goals this year?
As James Clear explains:
“Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity”
“Your habits are how you embody your identity… I didn’t start out as a writer. I became one through my habits.”
“Good habits make rational sense, but if they conflict with your identity, you will fail to put them into action.”
“Behaviour that is incongruent with the self will not last.”
“The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity.”
The three steps to ensure you feel proud of yourself at the end of 2025:
Get clear on and decide your new identity, ie. the person you want to be.
Get clear on the small but regular behaviours and actions, ie. atomic habits, that your new self would automatically do. Eg. If you want to become healthy, what would a healthy person do?
Prove to yourself that you are this new identity by acting as them, one small habit at a time.
Bit by bit, day by day, our small daily habits will deliver results and also teach us to trust ourselves. You’ll be glad to know that Clear says we’re bound to slip up and we don’t need to be perfect, we just need the majority of our habits to be small wins in the right direction. So here’s to slow and steady progress in 2025, and shaping new our identities, one habit at a time.
“The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do. Your habits shape your identity and your identity shapes your habits.” James Clear.
I wish your 2025 to be blessed, joyful, healthy, fulfilling, abundant and packed with love and happiness.
Jayne
PS. I created a printable PDF habit tracker for us to keep track of our progress.
Click HERE if you’d like to download a FREE copy.
Welcome lovely!
If we haven't met yet, I’m Jayne. I’m a Certified Spiral Practitioner, NLP Practitioner, Coach and Spirit Baby Medium who supports women along their fertility and conception journeys.
My mission is to help empower you to become a Mum. I do this through my emotional clearing sessions, group containers and spirit baby readings.
My clearing sessions help identify and clear the subconscious fears and concerns that conflict with your desire to become a Mum. My readings provide you with guidance and help you to move from fear and self-doubt, to a place of peace and trust. And my group container Becoming is a combination of all of the above.
If one of your goals is to fall pregnant in 2025, I’m now enrolling for my group container; Becoming, which starts on 7th February 2025. You can join with a $111 deposit. To learn more, click HERE.