What is hindering you from reaching your goals? What obstacles do you face? What is stopping you from achieving your goals? Why do you have the same goals year after year and never accomplish them? You can learn how to overcome hindrances in reaching your goals.

Have you ever sat and really thought about what is causing this to happen? Some things that might come to your mind are things like — not enough time, not focused, or fear.

Those might be things that have stopped you or hindered you but I want to challenge you to look deeper at what might be the root causes for why you do not achieve your goals.

I want to encourage you to dig deeper and discover the heart issues. Change your heart and begin to grow. 

Last year we had a large bush in our back garden. It was ugly and the roots of it were tearing down the fence between our garden and the neighbours. So to be a good neighbour we had it removed but there were roots remaining. We wanted to get those roots out so I spent some time out there digging and pulling. I worked hard and got my hards dirty. It was also a bit costly — I didn’t take my ring off and the prongs got lose so I had to get that fixed.

So I want to challenge you to take some time to examine and dig deep within looking for what is hindering you from reaching your goals. I will warn you it might be messy and you might not like what you find but if you know what is there you can deal with those issues and see growth. It is hard work.

Ask the Lord to help you. “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts!” Psalm 139:3

I would suggest that you consider a specific goal one that you have not made progress or as much progress as you would like. Do you have a goal in mind? I think my goal would be losing weight. I suggest that you have some paper to write these thoughts down.

Let’s pretend that the goal is decluttering. You have tried but just can’t get rid of things. It seems that you still have more things than you need.

Ask yourself what is difficult in achieving this goal? We are going to assume that this is a goal that you have prayed about and know that you need to continue pursuing.

What are the struggles? Think through what is happening or probably what is not happening with you goal? Go deep. Don’t stop with the surface reaction. What is really happening in your heart?

Are you struggling with contentment and so you continue to purchase things? Do you use things are rewards?

Do you just need help going through things and getting rid of things but maybe pride is standing in the way. Pride because you don’t want others to know what it is really like in the cabinets and closets.

Are you struggling with getting rid of things because maybe you will need it in the future? Are you lacking faith that God can and will provide again in the future.

Maybe you are just laziness and not doing anything? You are not focusing on the task but doing other things. When you have time to work on this, you decide to read a book or watch TV.

Maybe you need a friend to hold you accountable.

I told you it might be messy and hard work but now that you see these deep issues that are hindering you. You can begin to work on those issues.

Some of the heart issues that you might discover are pride, jealousy, discontentment, laziness, or selfishness.

Do not be discouraged. You have dug deep and found the roots. Now let’s dig those roots out and plant some seeds of characteristics that will help you to succeed. You can begin to grow through this.

Confess what has been hindering you. Pray for help. Dig into the Bible and see the truths about area you need to grow.

It is worth it. The bush and the roots that we dug out has now become a strawberry patch with berries on the plants. I am looking forward to enjoying the fruit of that hard, messy, costly work.

Know Yourself – This post has a bit of information about this as well.

So what goal are you struggling to achieve? What heart issues are obstacles in the way of being or doing what God has called you?

Dig deeper and begin to grow.