Here’s a scenario you may be familiar with. You’re working hard, you’re making some progress but success as you imagined it isn’t happening! In short, you are not moving forward fast enough.
You know you are moving forward but the pace of your progress is either slow or not what you expected.
I know this situation can be hard to deal with because you are doing everything that you believe to be right. You’re working hard putting in the time and effort and learning and implementing as you move forward.
You believe in yourself and your abilities yet you’re still not seeing the results that you expected.
Without a doubt, this situation can be frustrating. Hell, some days it’s downright infuriating!
I’m feeling a bit this way myself at the moment, so you are definitely not alone. I’m right there with you!
I wish there was one magic answer to fix things. But since there are many different scenarios, it’s hard to pinpoint the exact problem you might be experiencing, however, there are some contributing factors that come into play when we are not moving at the pace we would like.
See if any of them apply to your situation, then you can take the appropriate action.
I’ve included some questions to ask yourself, which I hope will help you work out why you are not moving forward as fast you would like.
Let’s dive in.
Disclosure – This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking on my links. Any compensation I may receive does not affect the price you pay.
You are following the wrong strategy
Often we aren’t seeing the results we want because we are following the wrong strategy.
If you suspect this is the case, it’s time to take an honest look at what is not working. Say for instance you are trying to lose weight and you are walking every morning and afternoon, yet you are still not dropping enough weight.
Maybe you need to have a closer look at your food intake. Perhaps your strategy needs to be more about eating healthy food than exercise.
Have a serious look at what isn’t working. We need to have the resolve to stop doing what’s not working for us.
Sometimes we get so invested in working a certain way, that we have a difficult time admitting it’s time to try something else.
We might want to stop doing whatever’s not working but we are unsure what to do instead, so we keep doing what we have always done.
This is when we might need to ask for help. Perhaps a coach, mentor, or qualified expert (accountant, a financial planner for example) can help.
Related posts –
- 16 Reasons You Are Not Achieving Your Goals
- 12 Things to Remember When You Think You Are Not Good Enough
- 1o Powerful Ways to Improve Your Self-Worth and Self-Esteem
- 10 Ways to Have More Confidence
You aren’t focusing on the right habits
I just finished reading High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way
It was a fantastic read. Over several years, Brendon had done extensive research and testing on what habits determine a high performer. There are six high performance habits – clarity, energy, necessity, productivity, influence, and courage. I highly recommend reading this book.
You are working on the wrong tasks
No matter what your goal is it’s easy to be working on the wrong tasks.
Look at the results you are producing (or more likely not producing). Often when we are procrastinating or feeling some sort of fear we work on the easiest tasks more often than we should. A lot of the easy tasks aren’t essential and don’t yield results.
Some of them we could skip altogether and it would make no difference but out of fear we work on those first.
If you are not getting the results you want or moving at the pace you would like, have a close look at what you are working on. If you are not working on the essential tasks that matter first, it’s time to move past fear and procrastination and get in and do the important stuff.
Make sure you are clear about the difference between an important task and an urgent one.
Far too often we run around doing urgent tasks, totally neglecting what’s important. Often by neglecting an important task, it suddenly becomes urgent which could have been avoided.
Are you putting off doing the hard stuff?
You are working on too many projects at once
If you are working on too many different projects, it can mean that your focus and energy is scattered.
Jumping from project to project might mean that you are not giving each project the focus and attention it needs to make serious progress.
The result may be a bit of this and a bit of that getting done but no solid results.
Are you working on too many major projects at the same time? If so, is there any way you can scale back so that you can focus on your most important one?
You’re thinking too big picture
There is nothing wrong with thinking big. Except (you saw that one coming didn’t you) when you think big picture about too many different projects and don’t put anything in place and actually start something.
Thinking big picture might mean that you only think about the end result without putting much thought into the steps required to get there.
Is your big picture way of thinking stopping you from making progress? If so, how can you drill down into the details to gain more focus and traction?
Related post – Are You All Talk and No Action and How to Turn that Around?
You are playing small
Sometimes we don’t progress at the pace we would like because we are playing small.
We might not be doing this on purpose, most likely we don’t realize we are doing it at all.
You might put the work into something but not take the time and effort to promote it properly.
By not fully putting ourselves out there, we get small results.
Are you playing small with a particular task, project, or action? If so, how can you ramp up your project so there’s a more substantial outcome?
You are comparing your progress or pace with someone else’s
There’s that comparison pain in the butt again!
Comparison can have us feeling inferior in the blink of an eye (if we let it!)
Often worrying about our pace isn’t because we are moving slowly but because someone else seems to be speeding past us.
You could reach out to the person who seems to be racing past you and see if you can learn from them. Of course, this isn’t always possible particularly if you are in competing industries but if it’s an option, take the opportunity to learn how they have achieved their level of success at the rate they have.
Related posts –
- 10 Ways Social Media Can Affect Your Moods and Emotions
- Don’t Compare Yourself to People on Social Media
You have unrealistic expectations
We can sometimes have unrealistic expectations going into a project. We think it’s going to be less work, cost less money, take less time and produce a particular payoff at the end.
This often happens when we are trying something new or it’s our first time working on a big project. Settling more realistic expectations gets better with experience.
Come to terms with what you didn’t know going in and learn what you need to – then you can set more realistic expectations for your next project.
Do you have unrealistic expectations for a particular project that you are involved in?
You need to be more proactive
Perhaps you aren’t planning ahead as much as you should be. When we get bogged down in the day-to-day operations in either our personal lives or at work, we can forget to plan ahead.
When we live one day to the next without any forward planning we tend to be reactive instead of proactive.
This means we find ourselves rushing out to buy a birthday present at the last minute when we should be attending to a much more urgent task. Make sure you are planning for at least the week ahead (a month ahead would be even better).
Know what’s coming up and plan for it.
Need help planning ahead? Grab a copy of the Slay Your Goals Planner by Nadalie over at It’s All You Boo.
If you would like to sample some of Nadalie’s great work, you can download the Free Slay Your Goals Guide to get a feel for how she can help you.
You are stuck in the busy trap
Everyone is busy.
We are all rushing from one thing to another barely even taking the time to ask ourselves – why am I doing this? Is this important?
Being busy to the point of exhaustion is worn by some people (and cultures for that matter) as a badge of honor.
I’m not sure why because being constantly busy does not mean that you are achieving your objectives or getting the necessary work done, big emphasis there on necessary work!
It could mean you are getting a whole pile of insignificant stuff done.
It could mean that you spend your day putting out fires (and I’m not talking about being a fireman), with very few positive results.
Try to ensure that being busy amounts to something, don’t just run from one thing to another because you think that’s what you should be doing. The human body needs downtime. Downtime will look different to different people, but it’s still a requirement in some shape or form.
I found a brilliant video from Brendon Burchard on priorities recently and wanted to share it with you. Have a look for yourself.
You are trying to coerce someone else into something
If your plan involves getting someone else to do something they don’t want to do, you are going to come up against a barrier that will slow down your progress and probably lead to a tonne of frustration. If you are trying to coerce someone, you may come across resentment at their end as well.
Try to ensure your progress isn’t solely driven by other people coming around to your way of thinking. Drop the notion that people think the same way you do.
Big heads up – they don’t. Some might but a lot won’t.
You will save yourself a LOT of unnecessary frustration and anxiety if you make peace with this fact. Accept this and get comfortable with it right here, right now or you could spend a lot of time asking – Why would they act this way? I would never do that!
Are you trying to coerce someone or expecting them to think like you to achieve your desired result?
You are struggling with self-doubt
At the beginning of the post, I mentioned that you believed in yourself and your abilities and were doing the work.
Yet the problem could still be self-doubt creeping into your life to mess things up (particularly if you are a creative person).
If you need to get a handle on your self-doubt, I highly recommend the How to Break the Habit of Self-Doubt and Build Real Confidence online course by the amazing Mel Robbins over at CreativeLive.
I’ve completed this course myself and got so much out of it. Read my course review post, to see why I loved it, why I am recommending it, and most importantly how you can benefit from taking this course.
Some final questions for you. What are you trying to achieve that isn’t moving at the pace you would like? What are the reasons your progress is being affected?
What steps or actions can you take to turn things around?
Ultimately we are all moving at our own pace but that certainly doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be doing everything we can to speed up our success.
Work out what you need to change or eliminate to get your success moving at the pace it should be – then nothing will be holding you back.
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Read Next – 10 Important Ways to Make Yourself a Priority