It's Not Your Fault: The Top 3 Reasons You're Not Living the Life You Want

Have you ever noticed that the life goals on your list seem to be the same from year to year? Lose those last 15 pounds, write the book, learn to speak a new language, save more money. They're all laudable goals, and yet, they never seem to be achieved.

In this episode, Laurie discusses the top 3 reasons you're not living the life you want. But as she explains: it's not your fault that you're not achieving them because you were never properly taught to set goals. Armed with the actionable tips included in this episode, you'll be able to narrow your 2024 goals to the ones that actually matter to you so that you can achieve them before year's end.

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Transcript

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As we reached the end of January. I want to help you stick with the goals you've set for 2024. So today we're going to talk about the top three reasons why you haven't achieved your goals in the past. I mean you're successful. So you've clearly achieved goals before. But what about those big life goals? You know, the ones you keep putting off. The ones that end up on your goal sheet or your to-do list every single year, but don't ever seem to get checked off. Yeah. Those goals. There are three reasons why you're not achieving them. We're going to talk about those reasons today so that you can actually achieve the goals you've set for yourself this year. Welcome to the School of Midlife podcast. I'm your host, Laurie Reynoldson. this is the podcast for the woman who has everything. She always thought she ever wanted career family, home cars, designer handbags, but now it's midlife and she can't quite shake the feeling that something is missing in her perfect life, that she was made for something more. She's wide awake at 2:00 AM asking herself big questions like: what do I want? Is it too late for me? And what's my legacy beyond my family and my work? Each week we're answering these questions and more. Let's make midlife your best life. Well, Hey there, friends and welcome back to another episode of the school of mid-life podcast. This episode is dropping on January 30th. I mean, Let's just call it the end of January, which how is that even a possible. It. It feels like we just started 20, 24. And it's also interesting too, that this is the fifth work week of the year. Unlike most years where the first is like on a Wednesday or a Thursday, And most of us are still enjoying some time off, at least part of the first week in January. This year, January 1st was on a Monday. So, yeah, I mean, most of us had that day off, but then we were right back to work on Tuesday and we've pretty much been working every day for the last five weeks. And since we're five weeks into the year, that that means a word. 10%, the 20, 24, it's already nearly 10% over, which is bananas. It, it also might mean that you might already be feeling a little behind the ball. So do this with me. Take, take a deep breath. Relax. You're not behind. And not only are you not behind, but today we're talking about the three reasons that we failed to achieve our goals. And once, you know, with that information, You'll be able to spot the trouble areas. You might be able to avoid them completely. But at least you'll know what you're dealing with. Before we go there though. There are two things that I want you to know. First. Is an interesting statistic. That's that's hard to say. Interesting statistic. 80% of new year's resolutions fail before February. And it's not even the end of February. It's February one, which is just in two days. So 80% of new year's resolutions fail. Before February. So let's really think about that because whatever goals, most people said, whatever new habits they started, or whatever projects they began working on at the beginning of the year, which this year was five weeks ago. And they started those projects with this idea, you know, that they'd achieve it or completed over the coming year. And it doesn't matter if they call it a new year's resolution or something else, like a goal or a habit or a project, but 80% of those. Have already failed because they are going to fail before February 1st. Which means if you're part of the normal crowd, if you have say five goals, you set for yourself this year. Then only one of them will make it past February. If you're an overachiever. And you've made 10 resolutions, which I have to say is a crazy high number. But just two of them will stick. Why, why am I telling you this? There is a reason that the big life goals you're working on in 2024. Her probably the same, or at least many of them are the same as your goals heading into 2023. And 2022. And maybe even a couple of years before that. All, all of this is to say that your not alone. If your goal lists looks the same from year to year. I just want to point out to that. I'm mostly talking about life goals here because you're probably hitting your work goals. Because of course, if you didn't, you could lose your job. Which means you'd lose your paycheck, which would directly impact your livelihood and your family's livelihood. Like things would be different in your life. If you lost your job. And maybe you wouldn't end up losing your job, but your salary would probably take a hit either because you'd miss out on a bonus or your annual increase. Would likely be impacted. But, but I think we can all agree that work goals are different than life goals. Mainly again, because work goals impact your bottom line. They directly impact the money you bring home. Life goals on the other hand. Those are more aspirational. For the most part, you won't lose money if you don't achieve them this year. I mean, If you've always wanted to write a book and it's been on your goal is for a while. You won't lose money by not writing the book, but you, you also won't make money from the book sales. But in your subconscious mind, the one with the part of your brain, that it's primary job is to keep you safe. Your subconscious mind is more worried about losing something you already have. Then understanding. Or taking advantage of the upside of what could be gained. So we don't write the book because we're not losing money. Nevermind that we could make a lot of money on it, but our, our subconscious brain doesn't think that way. It's the same reason why. When we talk about investing. If your financial planner or your stock broker calls you and says that she wants you to move$10,000 from a fund that is expecting a significant drop. I don't know, maybe the earnings reports are low. Uh, there's a bankruptcy rumor floating. Maybe the company is going to be acquired. Um, maybe, maybe the CEO has been indicted. That clearly I'm not an investment banking, but for some reason, Your financial planner, your stockbroker calls. And she says, there's a chance you could lose$10,000. So to protect what's already yours, that$10,000. You have her complete the transfer probably sooner than later. I mean, probably right away. What's interesting though. On the other hand, if she had called you with an opportunity to make$10,000. You likely wouldn't feel as pressured to act right away. Because our subconscious mind places, a higher value on what we already have. So let's bring this back to goals. You've probably been successful achieving your work-related goals because you felt like you had more to lose. Your paycheck. Your job. Your title. Your team. And If we boil all of those down. We're mostly talking about money. So you had something tangible to lose. And I think we can all agree that that's different than life goals, which again, tend to be more aspirational. They're more. The life we want to live. we tell ourselves that once we have them. We'll be happier. We'll be more fulfilled. We'll have more life satisfaction. And those would all be great things to have, but because we already don't have them. Because remember, like we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks, the fact that we have a goal means that we don't have the thing that we think that we want. Right. We wouldn't have a goal if we were already experiencing, or we already had the thing that we thought we wanted. While happiness and fulfillment and greater life satisfaction would all be great things to have. Because we already don't have them. Because we don't have them right now. We don't place as high a value on them. The other thing I want you to keep in mind, because remember I said there were two things I wanted you to know about not achieving your goals and the fact that 80% of them failed during the first month. That was the first thing. The second thing is. It's not your fault that you haven't been achieving the life goals. Because you weren't taught how to properly set goals. That's right. It's not your fault. You're just living your life setting goals, making declarations about what you're going to do, creating new habits, setting new resolutions. Basically your very well-intentioned. But you haven't been taught how to set goals. And because of that. 80% of them fail. So with those stats in mind, let's break down the three reasons we don't achieve our goals. The three reasons are one. We don't have enough time. Too, we don't have the skills or resources and three, they're not our goals. And you don't need all three reasons to fall short of a goal. In fact, just bumping up against one of these reasons will almost. Guarantee that you don't get where you want to go. So let's take them one by one and take a deeper look at each reason. Number one. There's not enough time. This one is huge. For some reason we tend to think it's good enough to just say, choose a goal, say it out loud and get to work. That's because we're working on something big. And so we assume that we'll have all of the time and energy to work on it. But here's the problem with that strategy? You only have 24 hours a day. Which is a 168 hours per week. Which means you have a finite amount of time each day and each week to chase your new goals. And while 168 hours might sound totally doable. Let's dig into the math a little bit. Because until we actually figure out how much free time we have in any given week. Then we actually can't figure out if 168 hours is enough time. And of course, just because there's 168 hours in a week, doesn't mean we can. Spend all of our time during that week. Working on our new goals. Right. So let's do some math. And I'm going to grab my calculator here because these aren't easy numbers to calculate. Um, And these are back of the napkin. Very rough calculations. Okay. Let's say you sleep eight hours a night. So that's 56 hours a week. And then let's say you work 40 hours a week. And you spend another two hours a day driving to, and from work running errands. So we'll call that, um, 40 plus fourteen, fifty four hours a week. So we got 56 hours a week in sleeping. We've got 54 with work and errands. And then. Um, let's say you spend two hours preparing food and eating food per day. So that's 14 hours a week. Let's add an hour each day for exercise and moving our bodies. That gets a seven hours a week. Uh, we need to shower and get ready. Let's throw an hour and a half at that. So that's 10 and a half hours a week. Let's round that up to 11, that that'll be easier math. Um, we probably should spend some time with the family. So let's, let's call that two hours a day. So 14 hours a week. And if we add those up. That's 156 hours per week. So 156 hours out of the 168 hours in the week, those are already spoken for. And I'm guessing that you work more than 40 hours a week, that you spend more time cooking food, eating, exercising, getting ready, and. I mean, we haven't even allotted. Any time for cleaning the house or grocery shopping or paying bills or. Having sex or watching TV or reading or journaling or walking the dog, things that many of us do each week. Well, Maybe not the sex thing you need to eat. That probably depends on how long you've been married, but you get the idea that. I think we can all agree that just because I said just because I calculated 156 hours that have been already earmarked, already spoken for. That is on the very conservative side. And if we assume. Very conservatively that. 156 hours of our time. Is already spoken for, and again, it's likely higher than that, but let's use 156 hours. Using that math. We have less than two hours per day to take on something new. So something has to give right. And most of the time, It's the new goal. Because we're already in our habits. We're already in our daily work. We already. Do the same thing day in and day out and week in and week out. And we don't. Have any more time? To fit it in. Our schedule. And here's the other thing. We try to do too many things at the beginning of the year. This is a year that I'm going to lose those 15 pounds and get rid of that menopause belly and start lifting weights and write the book I've been talking about for years and playing golf. And because we have so much momentum and excitement at the beginning of the new year. We tend to front-load January with a new eating plan and a new exercise routine, any new gym schedule. And he knew. Early, wake up time for our brand new morning routine. But here's the thing. If you try and change everything all at once. You're setting yourself up for failure because there literally are not enough hours in the day. Or the week to do everything new that you want to do. We just did the math. Right. Stick and stick with me here. You have less than two hours a day to implement your new eating plan, your new exercise routine, your new gym. Schedule your new time to write your book, your new golf lessons. Because again for most of us, When it's the beginning of the year and we're setting goals, we just add more things to our to-do list. But we don't realize we don't have any more time. So, if this is a year you want to accomplish your goals, you have to find time. You have to make time. But because time is finite. And just because we're going for big goals this year doesn't mean we get an extra 10 or 15 hours a week. That probably means we have to take other things off of our weekly to-do list. You have to free up some time. That might mean hiring help to clean the house or someone to drive carpool. Or maybe you're going to have your groceries delivered or hire a new assistant at work. Or invest in a personal trainer. But somehow you either need to stop spending time doing the things that are already on your to-do list. So you need to delegate them or have someone else take care of them. Or you need to spend less time doing them. Those are your two choices. But remember the, we didn't allocate very much time at all to work and eating and sleeping and all of those things that we put on our to-do list that. Kind of normal everyday activities that already added up to 156 hours. And please don't look. At reducing your eight hours of sleep and think that's the best place to cut your time because you need your sleep in mid-life more than ever. But if this is the year that you're going to make time to work on something new, you absolutely need to stop doing other things. Moving on. The second reason we don't achieve our goals. We don't have the skills or the resources. Resources can include time. But since we just talked about time, let's talk about other resources under number two. Those could be money. Those could be manpower. Those could be certain skills. Let's use. Writing a book as an example. Let's assume that you've carved out the time each week to right. So time is not your issue this year. But you've never written a book before. So even if you manage to get all of the pages written on your own. You don't have the skills or resources to take the writing and make it into a book. You don't have the skills to edit the book. Or design the cover art. Or publish the book. Or market and sell the book. Which means you can either hire editors to help you with those processes. Take some online classes to learn how to edit a book or self publish. Hire a designer to design the cover. Create the marketing campaigns. What happens to most would be writers in this situation. And I am absolutely talking from experience here. Is that they do what I like to call, play working. It, they play like they're working on the book, which means. You write a little bit here and there, and then you do a lot of internet research, like Googling questions about editing and self publishing. And. If they're anything like me, then they feel pretty good that they're working on writing the book, or at least that's what they tell themselves. But in reality, the books. Actually not getting written. We're. We're spending time on things related to the book. But not actually moving closer to achieving this goal because not only have we not written the book. But we also. Haven't. Mastered any of the skills. To take it from a manuscript to an actual book. We, we simply don't have the skills or the resources to get the book published. Another example. Uh, you're determined to lose those 15 pounds this year. And because you're a middle-aged woman, you know, because you've done the research, you know, that the best type of exercise for weight loss at your age is weightlifting. Functional mobility. With weights. Weight bearing activity. It's not only good for preserving bone density. It's it's the best way to lose weight in midlife. But you've never really lifted weights before. Those those two to three pounders. You, you, you used to use an aerobics class. That doesn't count as weightlifting. So you have the goal and you have the desire, which is to lose the 15 pounds, but you don't have the skills or the resources to know how to do it. The resources. You don't have a gym in your house. So you've got to join a gym or find somewhere where you can go work out that that has the equipment that you need. Skills. You, you don't know how to lift the weights. If you go to a gym and you just try and do it on your own. You're going to likely end up getting injured because you haven't been taught the proper form. More likely. You'll go to the gym and then you'll leave before you get started, because you don't want to look dumb. Because you don't want to be seen as a beginner or someone who doesn't know what she's doing. So there's an easy fix here. Hire a personal trainer. Join a gym. You, if you don't want to leave your house, then you can download an app if you want to work out at home. But choose one, like say the Peloton app with actual instructor who can talk you through proper form and technique. You don't have to go it alone. And in fact, your more likely to stick with it. If you admit that you need the help getting started. We've talked about the first two reasons you're not achieving your goals. Number one, you don't have the time. Number two, you don't have the skills and the resources. So what's number three. It's not your goal. What I mean by this. Is that it's a goal that's on your list because it sounds good to others or you've been conditioned to believe that it's a goal you should have or. You think. That goal and the achievement of, uh, we'll get you something. Else that you want. This one might be the hardest of them all to come to grips with. A lot of us have goals we carry for other people or for different reasons. Maybe we want to learn to speak Spanish because our great grandparents were from Mexico. And we promised our grandparents before they passed away that we learned Spanish one day. So as an nod to them and our great grandparents who we never knew. We have a goal to learn a different language. Except that we only have the goal out of obligation. It's something we promised someone else. So other than the obligation of keeping our word and being able to carry on a, let's say a broken conversation with locals while we're on vacation. We don't really care about learning a new language. It's something we feel obligated to do. It's something that. We promised our grandparents, we would do it. We are women of our word. We want to keep it, but. At the end of the day. It's not our goal. Here's another one. For many years, I had a goal to get my pilot's license. My Poppy, Wayne was a recreational pilot with a sea plane and he loved flying and I, I loved him. So it sounded like a pretty respectable thing to do, right. Get my pilot's license, plus it kinda, it has a little bit of cachet that goes with it. Right. Aye. I would have a pilot's license. And that was on my goal list for years. But it kept getting pushed to the next year. I, for some reason, I wasn't making time to sign up for flight school. I just, I never took any action on it. It was kind of one of those things on my list. That was a some day goal. And then I finally figured out. That it wasn't my goal to earn my pilot's license. What I really wanted was the freedom to fly private. I realized that I don't want to fly the plane. I want to sit in the back of the plane and be flown somewhere while I read a book and pet my dog and have a glass of wine. All without going through TSA and the hassle of flying commercial. So. It sounded good. But it wasn't my goal. And I think a lot of us add to do's to our list because we're still looking for ways to make our parents proud of us. Or we want to finally win that. Unspoken competition with our siblings. Or because we think that if we finally earn the big title at work or by the big house, so the incredible view that we will. Finally have made it. That other people will look at us and think we're successful. Can I be Frank with you for just a moment though? You're too old to still care about what your parents think about your life choices. You're too old to still chase achievements and accolades and material possessions so that you look successful to other people. How about this instead, figure out what you want, how you define success and what living your best life means to you. And do more of that. And while you're at it. Take out your pen and cross off any goals on your list that are only on your list because they sound good to someone else. Those aren't your goals? So you'll just keep putting them off. You'll deal with the negative energy of seeing them on the list. Yeah, they haven't been achieved. You'll feel guilty. You'll feel like you're not accomplished because you have things on your list that. You just keep putting off, you never achieve them. And even if you do finally find a way to achieve the goal I promise that you won't feel like you expect to. You won't be any happier. You won't feel any more fulfilled and you'll likely feel as empty as ever. All because it was never your goal So save yourself the time and the energy and the heartbreak and just cross it off right now. now that you know the three reasons that you haven't been achieving your life goals you don't have enough time you don't have the skills or resources it's not your goal you have a decision to make. What stays on the list and what comes off the list? What are you going to make time for this year? What are you going to make a priority? And what doesn't make the cut? It's so great to be doing this at the beginning of the year. Now you can narrow down your to-do list and you'll end up feeling much more accomplished at the end of the year when you look back and realize that you actually did the things that were most important to you. I'd love to hear from you. Which goals We're on your list this year and maybe have been on your list for several years that you're finally going to let go of? Come find me on instagram and let me know what your biggest takeaway was from this episode. i can't wait to connect with you there. On next week's episode i'm excited to bring you a conversation related to figuring out what you really want to focus on in life the life goals you want to achieve The to do's you want to make time for, All by going to a retreat and how much transformation can happen in just one weekend. It's going to be a good one and you won't want to miss it. Thanks so much for being here on and joining me for another episode of the school of midlife podcast i I will see you back here next week when the school of midlife is back in session until then Take good care Do you ever wish you had a community of midlife women who you could go to, to ask big life questions to have. Candid conversations about all of the things that come at us in midlife that no one else seems to be talking about. Well, great news. The School of Midlife is launching the, Your Next Chapter book club. Each month we'll be reading and discussing books that relate to the unique experiences of midlife women. It's free to join and we'd love to have you meet up with us and add your voice To these important discussions. Didn't have time to finish the book, but still interested in the conversation. No problem. Join us anyway. click the sign up link in the show notes and you'll automatically receive your invitation to join us. Get signed up, grab this month's book and start reading. And we'll look forward to seeing you at the book club this month where together we're helping each other make midlife our best life