(Photo Courtesy flickr|thomas.hahusseau)
There are six roadblocks to achieving goals. Knowing them will help you set & achieve goals betters – for yourself & for others you are trying to help.
1. Ownership: Only YOU can make YOU better. In goal-setting, you need to ensure that you own your change objectives – because they are yours. You are responsible for your behaviour.
2. Underestimating Time Involved: Positive change in perception does not occur overnight. Habits that take 30 years to develop won’t go away in a week. And as they change your behaviour, others may not recognize it for months. Ultimately, changed behaviour will lead to changed perceptions and more effective relationships.
3. Underestimating Difficulty: The optimism bias of goal-setters applies to difficulty. Your challenge in achieving goals is not understanding what is to be done, but in actually doing! Real change requires real work.
4. Assuming Lack Of Distractions: Assume that there will be unexpected distractions and competing goals. By planning for distractions, you are less likely to give up on the change when problems or opportunities appear.
5. Expectation of Rewards: While you do the “what’s in it for me” analysis, realize that the fruits might take a long time in coming. Its important to see personal change as a process that will help you become more effective over time. Short-term price is to be paid long-term gain.
6. Maintenance Effort: Personal kaizen is a perennial “getting there” process as compared to an “arrived” state. Changes & goals also need to be maintained with the “sharpening of the saw”. Especially when relationships are involved – people change, relationships change – and maintaining any positive relationship requires ongoing effort over time.
This post is inspired by Achieving Goals by Marshall Goldsmith.
Bawa has recycled quite a bit of woodwork from older buildings in the area. Some of them left dilapidated as it were, and the rest refurbished to fit into the decor. This one is in the Yellow Courtyard. 
