How (and Why) You Should Reevaluate Your Goals 

We all have goals and ambitions we want to achieve in our lives. We are enthusiastic when setting goals and become miserable when we fail to achieve them. As the saying goes, when a flower doesn’t bloom you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.

The same applies to our goals. If struggle with your objectives, you may want to consider changing and reevaluating them. The process in which an individual tries to reevaluate his/her goals is a huge step towards achieving whatever he/she desires. 

This post is all about How (and Why) You Should Re-Evaluate Your Goals 

What is Goal Setting

Goal setting is crucial for personal development . As the great Denzel Washington once said “dreams are just dreams without goals and they ultimately fuel disappointment”. We all have ambitions and aspirations to achieve greatness in life.

Whether these ambitions are personal, professional and/or both is not important, instead the shift should be on formulating a strategy that ensures success when reaching the top. 

Goal setting is the art of identifying and pinpointing targets and objectives an individual wants to achieve.

The philosophy behind setting goals is to break down big goals into smaller more manageable ones. As time passes, these “smaller” set goals will slowly add up towards achieving the big more meaningful ones. 

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Why is Goal setting Important 

Setting goals provides long-term vision as well as short-term drive. This acts as a filer, it helps you fixate your learning efforts and manage your time and resources. 

Setting precise, well-defined goals allows you to track your progress toward them, take joy in doing so, and make progress in what might have previously looked like a never-ending slog.

As you come to understand your own competence and ability in achieving the objectives you’ve set, you’ll also gain more self-confidence.

Why You Need to Re-Evaluate Your Goals

Setting goals is fine and dandy but you have to remember that they are not written in stone. It is important to understand and grasp the idea of becoming flexible while setting your expectations.

This means that if you think your targets are too ambitious and unrealistic, it’s totally fine to reevaluate them. 

Re evaluating your plans is not a sign of failure, instead it’s a sign of resilience, dedication and determination towards success.

Shows Maturity 

Having a flexible mindset when it comes to your ambitions shows a great deal of maturity and commitment. It speaks volumes about your character, mentality and ability to make tough decisions.

Moreover, re evaluating personal and/or professional goals is not an easy task, however it will reprogram your mind to find ways and dig up pathways towards success. 

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Efficiently Use Your Resources 

Re evaluating goals ensures that resources are utilized in the most efficient way possible. It also warrants that resources don’t go to waste which is always a plus.

In addition, this type of thinking pattern is great as it helps jumpstart your new updated goals with your current resources at your disposal.

These resources such as time, energy, research, plans and ideas may be kept for future use or implemented for the new reevaluated objectives .

Increased Focus Levels 

The ability to reevaluate your goals guarantees more focus and motivation for future goals and potential successes.

This serves as a type of filter that eliminates all types of distractions and negative noises that may hinder your progress.

Thus, focus levels are exponentially greater and more effective than before. The ability to filter out unnecessary emotions and thoughts is always important for a successful individual. 

Helps Reduce Stress 

Evaluating your goals and objectives is associated with decreased levels of stress and anxiety. Especially if your intents are deemed too ambitious and straight up unrealistic, reevaluating your goals will help you release all that pressure.

This pressure dump will exponentially increase energy levels while also enhancing productivity and creativity. 

When You Should Reset Your Goals

We mentioned earlier that it is crucial to keep an open and flexible mindset when it comes to achieving your goals and making progress . However, timing may be considered as important, since it is crucial to act quickly and effectively.

You don’t want to wander too far into the wilderness as it becomes much more difficult to return to your starting point. However, in this case you are not starting from scratch, but from experience!

Moreover, knowing when to keep going and when to stop, reevaluate and adjust your direction will help tremendously with allocating time, energy and resources towards your new and improved goals.

This ensures that no more time and progress is being wasted on previous tasks that are no longer a part of your daily grind.

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6 Signs it’s Time to Change Your Goals

The following list is a good rule of thumb regarding signs its time to change and reevaluate your objectives and entire life. 

It Feels Like a Chore 

This one is not a sign, it’s a red flag. When working on achieving your dreams and goals feels like a chore, obligation and/or homework, you should consider reevaluating your goals.

Moreover, if you try to “stick” with it, eventually sitting down and working towards your dreams will start to drain your energy levels.

This will affect not only your health and overall happiness, but it will also destroy your desire to even set new goals. Thus, people begin to realize that this is not for them and they quit.

You Keep Losing Focus 

If you feel like you have the attention span of a goldfish when you’re working on pursuing your desired results, you may want to consider changing directions.

This does not mean huge fundamental changes, but small tweaks here and there to ensure you maintain the right amount of energy, creativity and focus.

People lose focus mainly because they feel disinterested in something or someone. If you feel this way when trying to achieve your dream life, it’s time to recalibrate those goals as soon as possible. 

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You Begin to Procrastinate 

Procrastination is an extension of losing focus, passion, dedication and determination. Procrastination is a red flag, especially when it’s a personal goal you want to reach for yourself and your career.

However, there are a couple of reasons why someone would procrastinate on a project goal. It could either be that they lack concentration, feel overwhelmed and/or dont care at all.

Reasons For Procrastination 

• Lack of motivation 
• Fear of failure
• Consistent doubt 
• Distractions (priorities change)
• Low confidence levels 
• Indecisive (not knowing what to do)
• Does not care (lost interest)
• Overwhelmed (Hard to stay motivated)

You Feel Stressed Out 

Too ambitious , especially unrealistic ones are major factors for stress and pressure to build up. Don’t get me wrong, pressure is a good thing when it comes to achieving goals that help elevate your quality of life.

However, setting unrealistic goals and targets is more detrimental to your health and overall productivity levels.

This is wrong on many levels as it will destroy your self esteem and confidence levels, when you “fail” to achieve your high standard desires. 

Moreover, you will experience massive amounts of stress and anxiety that in reality is created by your own decision making process.

In addition to all of this, you will likely experience fatigue because of feeling stressed out most of the day. If you are experiencing such anxieties and stress when working on your business and career, please consider formulating strategic plans worth pursuing and accomplishing. 

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Your Priorities Have Changed 

A huge sign it’s time to reevaluate your goals is a change in priorities. A change in priorities is normal and is due to several factors such as personal and/or professional issues such as life changes.

As we stated earlier, it is imperative to maintain a flexible mindset when planning on achieving goals and objects.

After all, life is very unpredictable. Priorities are always changing due to advances in technology, unexpected opportunities and problems, and brand-new standards.

This is so important to grasp and understand especially in the fast changing modern world we live in.

Your Ambitions are Too Small 

This one is more on the positive side of the spectrum. Another reason to rethink your approach and know it’s time for a change in current goals is difficulty. If you crushed and absolutely obliterated your initial aims and expectations, it’s definitely time to change and upgrade your objectives.

However, if you significantly outperformed your expectations and went above and beyond your goal, it’s probably time to raise your standards, aim higher and pursue new opportunities

This is a great sign since it shows that your overall plan is effective and that you are making progress towards your original goal .

Thus, this means  aiming a bit higher and attempting to achieve more or creating entirely new goals to enhance a different aspect of your organization.

Both of these are excellent next steps to take when you have met your objectives and will help you propel your aspirations and passion projects forward even further.

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 How to Re-Evaluate Your Goals & Move Forward

Revisit Your Initial Goals 

Records are created to be broken, the same goes to plans, they are formulated inorder to be changed. The first step in the reevaluation process is to visit your initial goals, targets and objectives. Are they realistic? What will happen if you accomplish/don’t accomplish them? Why are these your goals, what do you want to achieve by reaching them? 

The above questions must be answered to move forward with your plans for the future. Failing to do so, is a red flag and a sign to consider rethinking your approach.

Be Honest With Yourself 

We live in a world where being honest with yourself is a rare aspect to behold. People would rather lie to themselves and live a delusional life instead of being honest with themselves.

It is imperative to become honest with yourself when trying to achieve personal goals.

You may recognize after a couple of years worth of work, that you don’t really have a passion for what you are doing. In such cases, you may want to take small steps, measure and change course while rethinking your approaches to your dream life.

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Track Your Progress 

Tracking progress is a double edged sword. It can literally make or break achieving success in any field of life whether personal and/or professional. Tracking your work and how far ahead you are in pursuit of your dreams is important.

This type of feedback serves as a “progress report” for what’s working and what’s not. In your pursuit of your dream life, you should become result oriented, in other words your achieved progress determines your success. 

However, this is not the end all be all. Progress is really important and without it we don’t achieve anything but, it should not define failure.

Much like an individual who is grinding day in and day out to lose weight, the number on the scale is important but it’s not everything. The same concept applies to all facets of life.

Trial and Error 

What worked in the past might not work in the future. You must let go of the outdated tactics that haven’t been working in order to successfully advance in the face of change. 

Examine your initial goals and compare them with the outcomes you actually experienced. Identify important disparities between what you intended and what happened. Why didn’t such ideas come to fruition? How have things altered since then? How may you go differently in the next few months? 

You can determine where your plans need to change and what tactics can still be effective for you by providing answers to these questions.

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Conclusion 

All in all, it is important to have goals and dreams, however, ridding yourself of your ego and maintaining a healthy flexible mindset will help in the long run. Life is an unexpected rollercoaster, in which we have little to no control over it. Thus, it is important to accept the fact of reevaluating goals and dreams when life happens.

This post is all about How (and Why) You Should Re-Evaluate Your Goals