Are You Setting the Bar Too Low?

Are you reaching your goals?

Are you reaching the heights you desire?

Or…

Are you falling short of your hopes and dreams?

Are you coming in below where you want?

In your job?  In your personal life?

Maybe you need to raise the bar…

Setting the Bar Too Low

Many people set their goal bar too low.  They set it where they know they can reach it.

The problem with this technique is that you are not going to reach your full potential.  You are not going to reach the heights that you could.

Sometimes this is due to a lack of motivation or just plain laziness.

Perhaps, it is a fear of failure.  So, the bar gets placed where you know you cannot fail.

However, being too conservative produces results that are limited.

But, what happens if I don’t clear the bar?

What if I fail?

You pick yourself up.  Put the bar back up.  And try again.  And again.

That is how you grow.  It is how you increase your skills and capabilities.  And ultimately, it is how you win.

Raising the Bar

Today, set the bar a little higher.  Raise it a bit out of reach.

You will accomplish things you didn’t you know you were capable of doing.  You will reach heights you didn’t know you could.

And remember, if you don’t set the bar high enough… you will always come in below where you want.

How high do you set your bar?  Could it be higher?

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3 thoughts on “Are You Setting the Bar Too Low?

  1. While it can be very important to set stretch goals, and then to learn your limits by trying to exceed them, it is working sticking within your limits at times.

    When I first started trying to reach goals, I was not sure I was capable. This lack of confidence was causing me to hold back even from simple achievable goals. By keeping within my limits for a while I was able to improve my self-confidence, and begin to start accepting that failing on some goals did not mark me as a total failure.

    My theory is first build confidence at reaching simple goals, then start to stretch yourself 🙂

  2. I definitely agree with this theory. I was recently analyzing my book-reading goals for the last few years. In years where I set the goal just slightly higher than I would ordinarilly read without a goal, I didn’t even reach half the goal — I actually did worse than when I had no goal at all. This year, however, I doubled my goal and amazingly enough I’m actually pretty on pace for reaching it so far! It’s weird – with a manageable goal, I didn’t even try and ended up missing that seemingly-easy goal, but with a super “hard” goal, it’s actually motivating me to try a lot harder than I had been previously.

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