How do you know when to give up on your goals?

Never.

Never, ever give up your goals.

That’s great Toni, but seriously, this goal is just not working out for me! I can’t keep going.

I hear you, but my answer is the same…never give up. Instead….recalibrate!

It makes total sense that life changes and with reflection, you realise your original goal may not be working for you anymore. That’s OK!

This is the time to make changes and knowing how to make a smart change can mean the difference between massive success or failure.

In this post, I’ll show you how to change your goal and what to do when things get tough and achieving it just doesn’t seem possible!

Why do you have the goal?

Now we know you’re not going to give up (right??!)  how can you recalibrate and change your goal to keep going?

Before you get to change the goal, you need to review why you set the goal in the place? What were you looking to feel by achieving the goal?

When we set goals, we do so because we’re chasing a certain feeling we want to get when we achieve them. If your goal is to lose weight, it may that feeling more beautiful, or healthier, or accepted or loved is what you’re chasing.

It’s the feeling reaching the goal delivers, not necessarily the goal itself that you’re after.

So, an example of recalibrating may be this:

If you set the goal to hit the gym five times a week to get (feel) more healthy but now that goal just isn’t possible, helloooo life and work commitments, can another goal still get you the feeling?

Maybe it’s making bigger changes to your diet instead and committing to shorter workouts three times a week at home rather than the gym.

The end result is still the same, feeling and looking healthier, but you’ve adjusted the original goal which simply didn’t turn out to be practical anymore.

Are you giving up too quickly?

One thing I see people do is give up on their goals way to quickly. They also rush into making decisions about changing the goal too fast.

This happens because doing the work to reach the goal starts to feel a little uncomfortable, but here’s the thing…

Goals are supposed to feel uncomfortable.

They are meant to stretch you and get you out of your comfort zone. Pushing those limits is where real change and growth happens. It means rocking the status quo and not settling for easy.

A great goal is supposed to be like:

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! I don’t know if I can completely achieve that, but I’ve got this little bit of belief that I’m going to do it!”

The last thing you want to do is give up on a goal or recalibrate because you think things are a little tough, a little too hard. When it starts to feel this way, you’re doing the right thing. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it!

When you feel that resistance, you’ve got to push through. You’ve got to push through as long as completing the goal will get you to the feeling that you want to achieve.

Just because it seems so big and so overwhelming doesn’t mean it’s time to completely let it go.

Chunk the goal down

A great way to remedy goal overwhelm, so you don’t give up, is to chunk it down a little more.

How can you break this huge, seemingly impossible goal down into bite-sized pieces?

Like the saying goes…How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

Maybe you’ve got a three year goal.  How do you break it down into a one year goal? A one quarter goal, a one month goal, a one week goal, a one day goal?

Break it down to the point that all you need to focus on is a simple action to take each day.

It feels much easier to plan to drink eight glasses of water and exercise for 10 minutes a day than it is to think ‘I’ve gotta lose 20 pounds this year!’

So there you have it, why you should never give up on your goals. Recalibrate if necessary, keep pushing when things get tough and chunk the goal down to combat overwhelm. You’ve totally got this!

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