9 Lessons I've Learned from Failing to Reach My Goals
Why can't I reach my goals? Do you find yourself saying this at the end of the year or maybe even at the end of January? Over the years, I've failed at many goals, and today, I'm going to share the goal-setting mistakes I've made and what I've learned from failing to reach my goals!
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Some years, I reach almost all of my goals... and some years I've reached almost none of them.
Occasionally, I'll look at a goal halfway through the year and think, "Why did I set this??"
I've been setting goals yearly for almost as long as I can remember. I made homemade planners in grade school and was always setting goals and making lists for myself.
After years of setting annual goals, I've made a lot of goal-setting mistakes.
Here are nine lessons I've learned from failing to reach my goals!
Making these mistakes has helped me improve how I set goals. Hopefully, you'll be able to take away some new tips for your own goal-setting process.
9 Lessons I've Learned from Failing to Reach My Goals
1. Changing Goals Mid-Year is Okay
A year is a long time, and life changes fast.
Sometimes, I look at my goals, and they aren't even goals I want to achieve anymore. Last year, for example, I changed my major (again!), so one of my new life priorities was getting into the business school at my university.
But that wasn't one of my original goals.
When I looked back at the goals I set at the start of 2025, they just weren't aligned with where I was taking my life at that point. That's okay!
A couple of years ago, I might have felt like I failed, but now I know that it's perfectly fine to change your goals!
2. Daily Tasks are Not Feasible
A very quick way to fail at your goals is to make them a daily task, especially if there's no clear outcome.
What if you get sick? What if you are out of town?
Last year, I set a goal to write down three things I'm grateful for daily, and to practice tap dancing six times per week.
Neither of these goals happened. In fact, I think I quit both of them in January because even though they are both great goals, they are too rigid.
I convinced myself that it was better to quit completely than to miss a single day.
From this goal-setting mistake, I learned that when setting goals, it's important to allow for life to happen.
If you miss once, you didn't fail. It's about getting back on track. This mindset change has been key for me to remembering that I haven't failed if I miss a day of working on a goal. I am only failing if I don't start doing it again.
3. Some Goals Aren't Meaningful Enough
In the past, I used to set an increasing number of goals every year. It was fun, but some of them didn't actually help me improve my life. My goals were more like a bucket list of things I wanted to, not things I wanted to accomplish.
If you go back through some of my goal-setting posts, you may see "23 Before 2023" or "22 Before 2022."
Talk about overwhelming! The list was becoming so long that I couldn't even remember what goals I set.
I came to the conclusion that having more than 20 goals every year is way too much! Most of them weren't meaningful enough for me to actually work towards them.
Now, I set 12 goals a year in four different areas of my life.
- Spiritual (religion)
- Physical (exercise and nutrition)
- Educational (school and career development)
- Social (relationships)
When setting goals, I think of the most important improvements I want for each of those four areas of my life. Then I set goals that will help me make progress in each of these areas.
This method allows me to set more meaningful goals!
4. Some Goals Aren't Real Goals (They're Habits)
When setting goals, it's important to distinguish if it's a destination or something you want to do on a regular basis that doesn't have a defined end result.
Going along with the point above, where I wanted to write down three things I'm grateful for daily. The end result is that I wanted this to become a habit. Meeting the goal would've been turning it into a habit.
But I never got there because I gave up after I missed for a few days.
Now, I set goals such as daily gratitude journaling as a habit-building goal, so if I miss for a few days or even fall off the bandwagon for a month, I can still get back on track and reach the goal as long as I'm working towards building that habit.
Do you want to continue doing this goal regularly after the year is over?
If yes, that is most likely a habit! Be intentional with how you go about setting goals for creating habits.
5. The Plan May Be the Problem
Back in 2021, I wrote a post about how I was setting my goals for 2021, and I had drawn up an entire master plan with guidelines for reaching my goals step-by-step.
The only problem is that I didn't stick to the plan. I don't even think I made it to the end of January. Failing to reach my goals again!
I still reached quite a few of my goals that year, but now, I take a much looser approach to reaching my goals. While I look at my goals regularly, I don't track if I'm working towards them every day because if there's too much tracking involved, even filling out the tracker feels like too much work!
It can deter you from reaching your goals.
6. Goals Don't Need to Take a Year
I used to think that goals needed to take around a year to accomplish.
The goals I set had to be so big that they took a long time to reach. This led to setting many goals that required daily effort such as working out daily or writing daily, with no real outcome.
No matter how hard I worked, I knew I wouldn't finish those goals until the end of the year. It was so discouraging that I didn't even want to start.
Now, I set goals that if I work towards them, I can achieve something without time having to pass by. One year, I set a goal to go for a month without social media including YouTube.
I finished that goal on January 31st, and completing one of my goals right at the start of the year gave me renewed motivation to work on the rest of my goals!
From failing to reach my goals, I learned that it's great to be achieving some of your goals near the start of the year to motivate you to continue working on the rest of your goals!
7. Sometimes Tracking Progress is Better than Tracking the Outcome
Some outcomes are out of your control like finding a job or an internship. Setting an outcome as the goal and then not reaching it can be very discouraging. No matter how hard you work, you may still not get that internship!
Instead, it can be much better to track progress depending on the goal. I've applied to more than 130 internships so far this year, and while the end goal is to get an internship, my goal for the year was to apply to 100 internships.
Applying to 100 internships is something that is in my control, and I feel like I'm making progress even if I haven't gotten an internship yet.
Even if I don't get an internship this year, I've still practiced applying to internships, worked on my interviewing skills, and learned more about what I want for my career.
From failing to reach my goals, I've learned that I'm much more likely to work towards the goal if I feel like I can achieve it.
8. A Total Number May be Better than a Habit
The next lesson I've learned is that aiming for a total number of doing something is sometimes better than trying to build a habit.
For example, this year as one of my religious goals, I wanted to get in the habit of reading a religious article every day. In the past, I might have set the goal as building a habit or even reading one article daily.
Instead, I set my goal for reading 100 religious articles. I've already reached that goal, and now I read one article a day out of habit!
I achieved the same outcome that I wanted, and I already reached that goal for the year!
Likewise, I talked about failing my goal of practicing tap dancing six times per week. This year, I set a goal to complete a tap dance program that has a set number of steps to learn.
Even though I don't practice tap six times a week, every time I do practice, I make progress towards my goal of completing the dance program.
9. It's Okay to Fail
Ultimately, the main thing that I've learned from failing to reach my goals is that it's okay to fail! Every year I fail at some of my goals, and every year I learn something new about the goal-setting process.
Failing to reach my goals shows me that I'm actually trying to achieve success in life. Every time I fail, I learn something new about what I do and don't want out of life.
Final Notes on 9 Lessons I've Learned from Failing to Reach My Goals
Every year, millions of people fail at their goals. Most likely, you are included in this group and so am I!
It's okay to fail at your goals. The main lesson is that failure isn't failure because every time you don't reach your goals, you learn something new. The real test is whether or not you set goals again the following year.
To wrap things up, here are the nine lessons I've learned from failing to reach my goals.
- Changing goals mid-year is okay
- Daily tasks are not feasible
- Some goals aren't meaningful enough
- Some goals aren't real goals (they're habits)
- The plan may be the problem
- Goals don't need to take a year
- Sometimes tracking progress is better than tracking the outcome
- A total number may be better than a habit
- It's okay to fail
If you enjoyed this post about what I've learned from failing to reach my goals, you can read these ones too!
- Having Trouble Reaching Your Goals? Here's Why
- How to Make a Vision Board to Help You Reach Your Goals
- How I'm Goal Setting for 2020 in My Bullet Journal
- 5 Life Rules to Follow This Year for Personal Growth
Thanks for reading about what I've learned from failing to reach my goals! I hope you have a productive week!
Don't forget to share this post with a friend that may be feeling discouraged about reaching their goals!
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