“I’m going to become a professional Kathak dancer. I just need to commit to it,” I told myself. I recently accepted a publishing offer and was making a list of my personal and professional goals for this year.
Kathak is one of the eight major forms of Indian classical dance and is unique to the region where I grew up. A fusion of three art forms: music, dance, and drama, Kathak performances are a joy to watch. When I was a kid, I learned it for a few years, gave up, and tried again several times, but it never really stuck. It wasn’t something I wanted to practice consistently. I thought to myself, “Maybe I just like watching? I can’t be that great.”
As an adult I wanted to prove myself wrong so I started taking lessons. “You’re so ambitious!” said my best friend. I thought she said it to encourage me. It wasn’t until much later that I realized it was a warning.
Work was busy and difficult. My days were filled with onboarding and training. I could barely make it to two dance classes in the first two weeks. I was tired and tired all the time. Instead of focusing on the lesson, I was looking at the time and wondering when it would be over so I could curl up on the couch and massage my aching ankle.
After about 4 months, I gave up. My personal goals felt completely unattainable and not as important as my professional goals. In the end, I was afraid of failing. So I stopped working on it. If I had approached my goals differently—achieved them at less busy times, put myself in less competition with myself, and viewed my goals as an outlet for joy—I would have actually reached my goals. It could have been done.
There are many factors that determine whether we achieve our goals. In my case it was clear…
We did not take into account barriers (time management, burnout, work-life balance). As Christy DePaul writes in “Here’s Why You Keep Missing Deadlines,” we tend to experience what is known as the planning error (a term coined by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky). there is. This directly contradicts our past experience. Optimism bias leads us to think that the future will somehow be better than the past. I was too ambitious (I thought work would never drain my energy). If your goals extend beyond your 9-to-5 job or study time, remember that achieving them will require time, energy, and focus. According to Alison Walsh’s article 5 Ways to Make Sure You Achieve Your Goals This Year, you’re much more likely to achieve your goals if you start small instead of all at once. . If instead of setting the goal of “learning Kathak” I would have told myself to take a few classes, see how they went, and gradually increase the frequency, I probably would have achieved something somewhere along the line. Probably. I was scared (I had set the bar too high for my performance). In the article “Why We Set Unattainable Goals,” the authors (all business school professors) discuss how humans tend to be overconfident, especially when goals are tied to self-esteem. It explains. In my case, I set a goal to prove myself wrong and overestimated the energy, skills, and resources it would take to make it happen. I didn’t even try to take it seriously because I was afraid of failing.
What else prevents us from achieving our goals? Here’s more advice from experts:
Don’t set your goals in stone — shape them like clay
Written by Lauren Kuykendall and Valerie Tiberius
Everything is malleable and can change depending on where you are in your life and career.
Can you achieve your New Year’s resolutions?
Written by Stephanie Fernandez
Three new books offer helpful strategies. “Big Goals” by Caroline Adams Miller. A Little Experiment, by Anne-Laure Le Cunff. and Reset, by Dan Heath.
3 ways we sabotage our goals (and how to stop them)
Written by Eduardo Briceño
Don’t be fixated on a destination. Focus on what you need to learn to get there.
Embrace self-compassion to achieve your goals
Written by Elizabeth Grace Sanders
Four strategies for letting go of paralyzing perfectionism and moving forward.
Reconsider your resolutions this year
By HBR Editor
Use these research-backed tactics to make a difference.
What prevents you from achieving your goals
Written by Jeremy Campbell
Overcome your natural reluctance to do difficult things by pursuing habits instead of goals.
