Ever had a problem sticking to your goals? Whether it be eating more healthily, stopping smoking or drinking? Perhaps a resolution to complete a side project outside of work that you “haven’t got round to yet”.

In society today obesity has been and is continuing to grow beyond belief. People all over the world are having direct health issues because of it. On the back of one’s obesity, the families and friends are less inspired and the issue can even become contagious through emotional attachment.

People give themselves many reasons to keep living their life the way they are comfortable with. Many people say they don’t actually care about being healthy, they would rather die younger than have restrictions on their diet today. Similarly I know a lot of people who enjoy smoking and won’t give it up because they say they enjoy it.

There are a few problems with this way of thinking which comes from the addiction to these vices (of food and nicotine) as we know for a fact that being healthy causes a much better quality of life. To give an extreme example: someone taking crack who enjoys it; thinking they don’t want to go back to “normal” life as they are happy where they are. It is the same issue of addiction on a larger scale.

It doesn’t take much more effort to create healthy food than grab a takeout, and the food that you make can be more tasty; you will also gain the feeling of accomplishment once you have created a good meal (for you and others). You will save a lot of money from stopping smoking or drugs.

The issue that many people blame is “self-motivation”. We are all here in this world alone; although people around you really do motivate you in different ways, at the end of the day everything comes down to just you (provided you are living a conventionally free life – which I assume you are if you are reading this article).

One problem is impatience. We live in a fast moving society and we want to be able to be fit immediately, within a month, within one week, within one workout. The truth is being fit takes a lot of time and requires consistency over a long period of time. This is true of most life goals as well. Of course there are quick wins, but in terms of substancial projects, everything takes time.

Then comes the issue of sticking with your goals. Many people start off well, perhaps sticking to some plan for a few days, maybe a week, maybe a few weeks or into the months, but then go back to their bad habits because they have forgotten why they started this journey in the first place.

That is exactly the issue: you forget why you are doing something and it seems easier to quit. You forget why you gave up smoking and the allure of it comes back. Suddenly you have completely forgotten your resolution of starting the whole process of giving up.

The same is true of any goal really. Life has ups and downs for everyone, but you have to remember in the downs why you are doing what you are doing. Writing down how you feel when you set the goal to remind yourself of you.

Splitting your goal up into more manageable chunks and ensuring everything is planned out is key. Then you just have to do the simple thing of executing the plan. Yes you can adjust minor details of the plan as you discover more, but you need to remember initial motivation to keep yourself going.

No one ever said this (life) was going to be easy, but having a good support group around you, and most importantly a good memory of why you set out on your goal along with a realistic plan, will help you get to where you want to go.

On the flip side too, you don’t want to obsess about something so much that it damages your life – everything in moderation!