The Key to Becoming More Productive Is This

Being overly focused on the goal rather than the process is right at the top, along with giving up too soon, as one of the biggest personal obstacles people face when it comes to achieving their goals, according Oliveri. Otherwise, you’re like the tennis champion who hates playing tennis. This is not a sustainable way to keep getting results. You should do whatever it is you do because you want to.

A common problem people have with respect to accomplishing goals, Oliveri says, is choosing a goal that they think they “should” choose rather than a goal that is personally and intrinsically motivating to them. These are goals that “you would still care about even when no one else does.” Motivation is what will keep you going when things, inevitably, get tough. Examine the reasons behind your goal and make sure they are the right ones. Otherwise you won’t stick with your goal for long.

A major issue for many people is the fear of failure. Most people who are scared of failing focus on how terrible that would feel and that prevents them from staying on track with actually working on their project, Wood said. “That fear is never going to go away; it’ll always be there; but you can bury it by getting more clear on what you really want accomplished,” she noted.

“We fall into a false belief that if we are mean and critical of ourselves we will perform better and we won’t repeat mistakes,” Oliveri said. In fact, the opposite is true. “When we are mean to ourselves we attribute our failures exclusively to our own ‘incorrectness’ and we subconsciously begin to believe that [we] are the problem and things will not work out for us in general.” This makes people feel demotivated, pessimistic, and paralyzed, Oliveri noted.

“When you hear yourself talking down on yourself, you actually start to realize the ludacrisy of your statements,” Wood said. This is when the relationship between you and your self-esteem will start to shift, she noted. “You start getting responsible about the way you talk to yourself and it becomes harder to lie to yourself.” Quit the self-bullying so you can get back to finishing what you started.