Although most self-help experts claim that setting goals are the golden key to success, many people set goals and nothing happens.

Why does this happen?

Imagine Harold is obese, went to get a physical checkup, got alarming results, and was sternly warned by his doctor to do something about his excess weight or else.

Motivated by fear, Harold decides to set a goal of losing weight.

His first goal is to read a book on weight loss and to then set a plan into motion.

He reads the book and makes a plan, then months later finds that he did not even follow his plan.

Here is what has probably happened.

He did not write down his goal, and he did not read it daily. In effect, he lost track of what goal he had in mind. He drifted away from his goal and looking back, he sees that he did not do any work toward it.

Looking back over the wasted 6 months when he could have accomplished his goal, he saw that he did not act because

He felt tired after work, and he did not have the energy to follow his goal of eating right and doing exercise.

He got distracted, and he had to help his mother recover from her hospital visit, his wife deal with the kids and his friend Ed find a new car. Besides, there were ball games, TV shows, and trips to the Zoo with the family.

He justified himself when challenged by his wife on not following his goal with the word but in his sentenceas in I was going to it today BUT I didnt because

He got into agreeing while disagreeing by saying, yes, but in his sentencesas in Yes, that is a great idea, and Im going to do it, BUT

He became eloquent in arguing for his limitations. Im just one of those people who dont have strong feelings about things. If only I had been raised by more assertive parents, I might have been able to deal with the pressures at work better.

He started to offer reasons why rather than produce results. Well you see the reason I cant do it right now is because

He made self-defeating choices, moment by moment, day by day, week by week, and month by month.

He basically felt uncomfortable changing his habits. He felt twinges of fear, guilt, and unworthiness. He felt hurt, angry, overwhelmed and confused. And he just did not feel good when he tried to work on changing his habits to align with his goals.

After six months, he remained as obese and as unhealthy as before despite his doctors warning about his alarming physical checkup results.

Its easy to set a goal, and its easy to make plan, and when you dont know how to execute your plan, its possible to educate yourselfbut the real work is in doing it, diligently, day-by-day, in a highly focused way. The truth is that anyone can achieve any goal if they can get out of their own way and (as the Nike people suggest) Just Do It.