Why Your Goals Keep Running Out Of Steam [New Podcast Episode]

You have a significant goal.

You've already taken action on it.

But you find yourself running out of steam: procrastinating, slowing down, or even giving up.

It’s not that you don’t act on your goal, it’s that you don’t KEEP acting on your goal, and success feels very far away.

If you don't know me, my name is Astra and I’m a personal transformation coach. I help you change your mind so you can evolve into the person you’ve been waiting to become. And one of the areas that comes up with my clients is how they can feel and be more successful in their business and lives.

In this new podcast episode, I explore exactly Why Your Goals Keep Running Out Of Steam, and how to fix it.

Key Points

• The two kinds of goal motivation

• The horror movie problem

• Running toward vs running away

• What do you actually want to run toward?

• An exercise to help you transform your goals

Links In This Episode

⁠The Soul-Driven Goals Workshop

astrasoulfeather.com/souldriven-goals-workshop⁠ 

⁠What's Really Stopping You? Diagnostic Tool

go.higherlove.co/goalquiz

Watch On YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_H1txRib9E

Listen On Spotify

Click here to listen to the podcast on Spotify.

Transcript

So let's say you've already got a goal, a significant goal, a really ambitious one. You've started taking action on it, but what you find is that even though you're taking these small actions, you find yourself running out of steam, you slow down in what you're doing, maybe you procrastinate, maybe you've even set these ambitious goals in the past and you end up giving up. It's not actually that you don't act on your goal, the problem that you have is that you don't keep acting on your goal.

And so success slows down and it always ends up feeling far away. Now, this is a very common problem. And if you're new to me, my name is Astra.

I'm a personal transformation coach. My work gives you the tools you need to radically improve your self-mastery, your daily routines, your life choices, including around goal setting. So you can finally transform into the person you've basically been waiting to become.

And one of the areas that comes up with my clients again and again is how they can feel and actually be more successful in their lives and in their business. So in this podcast episode, we're going to have a look at exactly why your goals, whatever you've set them as, however ambitious they are, keep running out of steam. So let's dive into it.

So the first point I want to make is that there are actually two types of goal motivation. It's really important to know about these two different types because they're what inspire or encourage you to take action to even set the goal in the first place. And you might have heard coaches talk about goals that are based on values, based on the person you want to become, identity, things like that.

To be honest, I've always thought it's a lot simpler than that. You have goals that are based on two things. They're either based on fear or they're based on love.

They're based on avoiding something that you're scared of or that you don't like. Or they're based on something that you are really compassionately dedicated yearning for, something you really, really desire and want. So two people can have the same goal, but with very, very different intentions.

So you might describe it as like a negative intention if it's coming from fear, a positive intention if it's coming from love. Other people might describe it as like a lack mindset versus an abundant mindset. And these two different intentions, if you've got two people with the same goal, will end up having very, very different results.

So let's say a really common goal that people have that like often work with people who are interested in doing this is you want to quit your job and you want to work for yourself or you want to turn something that you're really passionate about into your full-time occupation, your full-time calling. Now, do you want to do that because you hate your boss, because full-time work sucks, because you're afraid that if you don't actually pursue this goal, you're going to end up stuck in a dead-end job for years, be really unhappy and unwell? Or is it because you're totally in love with the idea of building a business, of doing all of the hard work that comes with it, of what your business could be and what your life could be in the future? They're the same goal. The goal is to leave your job and work for yourself.

But the intention is very different in both cases. And fear-based intention, a goal that is set and the actions you take based on fear, they're going to give you immediate momentum. I know in the past when I've quit jobs that I don't like, left relationships that weren't good for me anymore, moved locations that were kind of done, often it came from a place of that kind of, I've got to get out of here.

So it's that fear-based intention that gives you immediate momentum is really, really useful, but it's not sustainable. I want you to think of it like this. The analogy is the horror movie.

So imagine you're watching a horror movie. All of the protagonists in it, the group of like screaming teenagers or whatever, they realise that the monster is in the house. So they start running as fast as they can away from the house, out into the city.

And as soon as they think that the monster's left them, that they've got far enough ahead, what is the first thing they do? They stop. And then is that, you know, that's exactly the point. We all know what happens then.

That's exactly when monster gets them. So the fear is what drives them to run. But after they stop feeling that fear, there's no more momentum.

So we end up slowing down hugely and our actions stop, whether you're running from a monster or you're running from a life that you don't want anymore. Your actions just slow down and slow down and slow down because you've overcome that initial problem. Once you've quit, your job is done, right? We've got to have something that we've got to run towards instead.

So if you're trying to make progress and it's powered by fear, you're going to find that your progress slows and slows and you start to procrastinate. And there's a real problem there. That's one of the biggest reasons why your goal ends up running out of steam, because there's nothing to power it now that you've done that initial, like got over that initial hump of whatever that fear was.

It's actually really difficult to get out of that idea of doing things, at least to start with, because it's something that you don't want to happen. Unfortunately, we live at the moment in a real, especially a real media culture of fear. We're very, very scared of the future.

We're scared of what might happen. We're scared of not having enough. We're scared that we haven't done it quickly enough, that things need to happen today or even yesterday, rather than allowing it to be a sustainable journey, allowing it to have progress in a way that's like organic and natural for us.

And actually there's lots of business coaches, very well known business coaches and personal development kind of gurus that really encourage you to be thinking about that, who activate your fear by talking about, do you really want to be stuck in this dead end job for years? And do you want to be a loser? And do you want, you know, there's a real like push to use fear as a motivating force, including even in the prevalence of hustle culture, this idea of you've got to keep doing, you've got to keep going, you've got to grind away. That's not because people want to grind. It's because they want to grind so they can get somewhere and stop grinding.

So the fear is like, I don't want to be stuck in this dead end job. So I've got a hustle to do it, which is not very enjoyable. And then you don't want to do it.

And after you've left the dead end job, you know, you've already done it. And then it slows and slows and slows. And these like methods, these methods for trying to achieve things, for trying to achieve goals, are not designed for who we truly are as spiritual beings.

We're not here to experience and live our lives based on fear and everything that we don't want. We're here to experience the world and our lives based on what we do want, what we desire, what we yearn for, what we are drawn towards. I mean, this is why nearly 10 years ago now, as someone who is a recovering, obsessive planner and who used to set so many goals that came from fear, even though I didn't realise it at the time, about 10 years ago, I developed my own method for goal setting.

I've used it ever since. I teach it to my clients and it's brought me amazing results, including really cool things like travelling Europe when I've been building my business and securing multiple five-figure contracts when I just put a few LinkedIn posts out, that I was able to magnetise opportunities because I was looking for the thing that I wanted. All of my activities were geared towards what I loved and what I was yearning for, not what I was running from and what I was afraid of.

This method, I call it soul-driven goals. We're going to be talking about in the podcast in a minute, talking a bit more about some of the key aspects of it, including my 10 rules of wild success. We're going to look at one of the rules in a minute.

There's so many exercises in this method because we need new ways of setting goals. We need new ways of setting goals that aren't based on smart methodologies, which just don't work. They've never worked.

I've never understood why anyone teaches them, that aren't linear, that aren't hypermasculine or hyper capitalist. We actually need better ways of doing it. This is something that I've developed, as I said, and used for the last 10 years.

If you really want to transform yourself this month and you're super interested in this new method after you've listened to the podcast, then I really want you to check out the soul-driven goals workshop. I teach the whole method in it. The link for that is in the episode description.

As I said, one of the aspects of that workshop is my rules for wild success. I'm going to talk to you now about rule number four. To succeed, you've got to have something you're running toward, not just something you're running away from.

You've got to have something you're running toward. Think of all of the videos you've seen of people meeting their loved ones off a plane. They would run through crowds.

They would run through fire to get to them. That's what you need. It's not that they're scared of being on the plane.

They're running towards something they really desire. It's about reorienting your goal from what was about, I want to leave this job, or I don't want to be stuck in this situation, or I'm worried about this aspect of myself that I want to change. Reorienting it towards what's truly desirable for you.

Moving from avoidance and fear-based language to language that is delicious and desirable and feels good when you think about it. Changing the words of your goal doesn't just change the structure of it. It doesn't just change the language.

It changes the entire energy behind it. This is why, if you've ever set a resolution for yourself, a New Year's resolution, that uses the words like stop or quit or don't, they are much, much harder to achieve than resolutions and goals without those in. If you say quit smoking, it's very hard to do that because the brain is just constantly thinking smoking, smoking, smoking.

It doesn't really register the quit bit. Whereas if you had a goal that was something like breathe easily every day, or I want to be able to run for the bus, or I want to breathe in fresh lungfuls of air every single day. Can you feel the difference of that? It's so much more desirable.

It paints a picture of the world you want to live in and the person you're becoming as you go towards this goal. You want to think about what you want to run toward. This is how to keep your goal full of steam, full of energy, and you full of motivation to avoid that procrastination.

You want to actually run towards something. So what is the dream? What is the desire? What is the sensation, the feeling, the thoughts, the emotions, the ideas that you want to get towards? For me, I know that thinking about leaving jobs, the thing that I've actually been yearning for is time and freedom. I want to go where I want, when I want, and I want to earn money while I'm doing it.

It's about that freedom. That freedom is what I'm running towards. So the more I can focus on that rather than avoiding constriction or avoiding the stress of routines that I don't agree with or having to be at a certain place at a certain time because somebody else has set my schedule, that just keeps me in that mindset.

Whereas when I think about, I want to be free. I want to be free to express and explore myself and the work that I do as much as possible. I want to be spontaneous.

That's the dream. So what's the dream? What's the desire? What does it feel like? And when you find it, it will feel not only joyful and pleasurable, but there will be an element of relief. So imagine it like the horror movie.

Imagine it like the tension in the horror movie. You're running because there's a tension. There's a tightness there.

But when you're running towards something that you love, your heart is opening. Your mind is expanding. You feel free.

So you will know it when you find that language that's going to help keep your goal full of steam, keep the motivation going because you're going to feel something that pulls you. You're yearning. It pulls you towards it and it feels like, oh, like a deep breath of fresh air.

So let's look at some three key takeaways now. And this is the exercises. Well, the key takeaways here I'm going to talk to you about are based on one of the exercises that are part of my Soul Driven Goals method.

So the first thing I want you to do is if you have existing goals, which I'm sure you do, I want you to identify, go through each one and identify whether they are primarily based in fear or based in love. So think about, am I really loving and desiring and excited about getting this thing or achieving or feeling this thing? Or is this a goal based on something I'm afraid of? And it might be that they're a mix. So a nice way to do it is actually assign a percentage, like what percent of this goal is coming from a place of fear and what percent of this goal is coming from a place of love.

And if you find that the majority of them are coming from a place of fear, it's time to do the second key takeaway, which is to rewrite what they're doing. Just pick one goal to do this. You want to practise this a bit at a time.

So one of the goals that you identify as being coming from a majority like fear place, rewrite it, redefine it so it describes as closely as you can what you're moving towards, not what you're moving away from. So for example, if you have something in your goals that's about losing weight or changing your body shape, losing body fat or something, some aspect of your physical appearance, which is about changing your body, rewriting it if it's fear based, rewriting it to become about, I want to feel X, I want to feel strong, I want to feel healthier, I want to enjoy my body, I want to be able to move this or do that, that what you're coming towards. So rewriting the goal so it's about what you're running towards.

And when you do that, just take a day, two days, and just sit with the difference of feeling in your body between the two versions of that goal. The one that's predominantly fear based and the one that's coming from a place of love and desire for the future. Just sit with the difference.

And if you still not, it doesn't feel quite right, you can still rewrite it, make it better so that it's more about that love based intention. But you're trying to understand that really embodying what it means like to have a goal that you are genuinely motivated to continue with. The goal that runs out of steam is the one that every time you think about it, you freeze, you feel stuck behind a tree waiting for the monster to come and get you.

You're scared, you're nervous, you're tense and tight and so you don't take action. The goal that's based in love, the one that you're truly motivated about, that you want to work on and go towards and just can't wait to get started on it, right, or continue with it, feels free and easy and big and juicy. So rewriting these, understanding the percentage of the intention, rewriting one of them and just noticing the difference in your body is really going to help you.

So I'm coming to the end of the episode now, but I just want to mention how you can kind of learn a bit more. So if you want to transform yourself this month around goals and really start experiencing some of this deep success, then as I mentioned, you want to check out the Soul Driven Goals Workshop and this is where I teach the goal-setting method, including a very, very deep dive of the exercise above. I've been using it for 10 years.

It took me from like, I was successful on paper, but I was totally numb in person, to actually like living and breathing and celebrating, like my dreams coming true and feeling good about myself in the process, rather than beating myself up because I wasn't doing enough. And I know you know what that feels like. So this is a video workshop that's on demand.

It's available on my website. I've put the link in the episode description, or you can just Google Higher Love Soul Driven Goals and it will be the first result on your search engine. And if you're like really resonating with what I'm talking about in this episode, but maybe you're not quite like at that point of investing that two hours of time, even though like it will change your life in two hours.

I have a little tool that you can use. It's a diagnostic tool and it's a lovely quiz. So the website for that is go.higherlove.co/goalquiz.

The link is also in the episode description. The assessment tool is called what's really stopping you? Because I know that's one of the biggest things is we have these dreams, we have these goals and then we get stuck and we don't know why. And once you find out why, you can solve it quite easily, right? It's just the finding out what's actually stopping you.

So when you answer those questions on that quiz, you'll get a personalised result of the one thing that you need most of all right now to help you make progress and start feeling successful. And then after that, I'm going to send you a short series of emails to help you do it using some of the key ideas from the Soul Driven Goals method. As I said, links in the episode description for that what's really stopping you quiz, or you can visit go.higherlove.co/goalquiz to get started.

Thank you so much for listening and I'll speak to you next time.