Realizing Your Goals Despite The Challenges

Most people prefer to blame others when something goes wrong instead of taking responsibility. This is always easier than taking time to examine one's own actions and motivations when we fail to achieve our objectives. However, achieving maximum success in life requires that each of us take responsibility for his actions and work continuously on self-improvement.

In a previous article we identified self discipline as the most important quality for success in life. No matter what you are trying to accomplish, you need to have the discipline to make yourself do what you need to do. There will be times when you feel lazy or tired or unmotivated, and this is when you need discipline the most in order to continue moving forward towards the achievement of the goal.

There are two major reasons that cause people to fail when attempting to reach a goal. These are following the path of least resistance, and succumbing to the expediency factor.

These two tendencies encourage people to look for the easy way out in any situation. Most people think about what will give them pleasure or relieve some tension in the short term instead of focusing on what will bring them success in the long term. Instead of concentrating on the long-term goal of maintaining their weight, for example, a person will often think about what is most fun at that particular moment. A person might put aside the long-term goal of health and fitness in exchange for the pleasure of an ice cream sundae or pizza in the short term.

Spending is another area where people get into trouble because they follow a path of least resistance and the expediency factor. Many people go to the mall to spend money whenever they feel stressed out, sad, depressed, or just bored with nothing to do. They made have set a goal for themselves regarding how much money they were going to save each month, but in that moment all they focus on is how they feel at the moment. They want to achieve a small "high" by simply going out and spending money on something they don't need to buy.

These two examples regarding health and fitness and spending money are two important areas of the many examples in which human beings tend to give in to the path of least resistance. If you wish to achieve great things in your life, you must focus on developing the quality of self-discipline and overcoming the two great enemies of success. The path of least resistance wants to make you lazy and look for shortcuts, while the expediency factor makes you think about the moment instead of focusing on the long-term consequences of your actions.

By developing your skills in these critical areas, you will become a much stronger person and will be much more likely to achieve your goals in life.