Why Do People Postpone Their Life Goals?
The strangest thing I see is motivational speakers telling people they are simply procrastinating and that’s why they can’t accomplish their life goals. No one factors in personal experiences when they speak from positions of absolute privilege where the only worry they have is their life goal. Though procrastination is a serious issue, it is not the only reason why people have postponed their life goals.
What is a Life Goal
This may seem like a strange question in 2023, but for many people, their life goal is the standard societal belief of a family, a decent job, and a home. Ironically, there are also people who have accomplished these goals and are still unhappy. That’s mainly due to the fact that it wasn’t their life goal, but someone else.
Your life goals are supposed to be yours.
It is supposed to be something that makes your life worth living for. And though it may be similar to the standard picket fence ideology, I highly doubt your life goal is just as basic as that. Sadly, many of us, especially women, are programmed to tie our version of an ideal life to marriage, family, and that picket fence. It is also why the aunt who travels or the uncle who lives with his dog is portrayed as having a lonely, depressing life.
Individual life goals are not allowed.
Life goals that make only you happy are seen as detrimental to society. After all, sacrifice is a part of life and if you haven’t sacrificed anything, how will you be happy? Society has programmed us to believe that life goals always come with a cost.
Which isn’t always true.
For those born with a silver spoon, your life goal costs you nothing but time, which you would have wasted anyway if you had done nothing. So what’s the real cost in a scenario like that? Achieving your life goals takes the love of purpose, determination, commitment, and strangely enough an actual life goal.
5 Reasons Why People Postpone Their Life Goals
Here’s something a lot of motivational speakers don’t acknowledge, a lot of people don’t set out in life to achieve anything. After all, their target audience is actually searching for meaning and purpose in life, so those slackers don’t matter. But in fact, 80 percent of them do! They are the ones who are drifting through life without anyone telling them they should do something important with it.
Despite what some internet gurus might say, this is what I believe is why people postpone their life goals:
Don’t Have a Goal
At one point, I was one of those people who was blissfully unaware that I should have a goal for my life outside of what I was being told to do. If you told me XYZ sounded like a good idea, then XYZ is exactly what I did. This is how I ended up learning to do a lot and planning without an actual goal for my future.
Money
Being poor is not just a state of mind. It is not a victim mentality. It is a harsh reality for many people who live paycheck to paycheck and below the poverty line. You can have the world of business ideas, a positive mindset, and be the best worker and still be broke af. Besides, it is now a proven fact that money is a great stress reliever.
Mindset
You can be blinded by your negative mindset that will keep you from seeing opportunities, joy and even finding your purpose. Mindset does play a major role in achieving your life goals. It’s important to be in the right mindset when you are seeking out your life goals because emotional decision-making can be detrimental to your success.
Health
Not everyone is healthy in mind and body. Some people need to recover from major trauma or learn to manage their chronic illnesses before they can even think about their life goals. Even when you are healthy, you can be derailed by an accident or an illness in your family.
Distractions
You may be so distracted by the glitz or the mundane challenges of life that you simply never think about your life goals. This is where being highly focused becomes an important skill in your success. Being distracted by the constant bombardment of other people’s problems, or tied up by daily routines thinking your life is so full and meaningful until you realize all that happiness is not for you.
If the plan doesn’t work, change the plan, but never the goal.
Now, I bet a lot of you are wondering why time is not on the list. Time is not one of the reasons to postpone your life goals because time is an excuse that is related to mindset. Nobody is ever too busy or tired to find the time to work towards something that is important to them.
How to Get on Track With Your Digital Lifestyle Goals
It’s one thing to have a life goal, achieving it is a whole other goal. It’s easy to say this is my life goal, but it is a hundred times harder to start working towards that goal. And a thousand times harder to stay on track while you work towards your life goal.
Here are a few ways you can stay on track with your digital lifestyle goals;
- Time Management
- Organization
- Mindset Development
- Form Habits
- Stay Focused
Just as it's easy to know that you need to do these things, it's doubly hard to actually put it into action. That’s why the first thing you should do is time management. Pay attention to how much time you are being productive on goals that can actually benefit your future.
Then you get organized.
Declutter your mind and your space. After that, you can start thinking about the mindset(s) you need to work towards your goals. Build healthy habits that can help you stay focused, and motivated to achieve these goals.
There’s nothing wrong with postponing your life goals until you are ready to fully commit to them.
