The Three Barriers
Fear, no deadline, waiting for inspiration — the three things that kill every personal goal.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 90%
Nemtin's speaking work centres on why some people go after their goals and most do not. He isolates exactly three barriers. First is fear — of failure and of what other people think — which he calls the number one barrier and backs with research. Second is the absence of deadlines: unlike work goals, personal goals have no due date, so they are perpetually deferred. Third is waiting to feel inspired or waiting for the perfect time, which never comes. Each barrier gets its own counter: separate real from imagined fear, create accountability through writing and sharing, and manufacture inspiration through action. The Bucket List Journal is explicitly designed around these three.
Origin
After the road trip and MTV show, Nemtin became preoccupied with a research finding: 76% of people reach their deathbed regretting the things they didn't do. He started speaking in order to move more people into the minority who actually go after things, and the three barriers are his answer to what separates the two groups.
Core principles
- 01Fear of failure and fear of judgment is the number one barrier to personal goals.
- 02Personal goals have no deadlines, which is why they are always pushed.
- 03Inspiration rarely arrives; you manufacture it through action.
- 04Each barrier has its own specific counter-move — they are not one problem.
How to run it
- 1
Diagnose which barrier is live
Before applying a fix, work out whether the goal is blocked by fear, by having no deadline, or by waiting for inspiration. They look identical from the outside and require different moves.
Watch out Assuming it is always fear leads people to do endless mindset work on a goal that actually just needs a date.
- 2
Barrier one — separate real fear from imagined fear
Fear of failure and fear of what other people think is the number one thing stopping people. Nemtin's move is to identify explicitly which fears are real and which are imagined, rather than treating the blob as one thing.
Pro tip Note that at work you ask a leader or a mentor for help without shame. The fear is specific to personal goals — which reveals it as social, not practical.
- 3
Barrier two — manufacture the deadline through writing and sharing
Personal goals have no deadlines, so create accountability artificially. Writing the goal down takes an idea that doesn't exist and makes it real. Sharing it with your community means someone will ask you about it later.
Pro tip Say the goal to a specific person who will see you again. Nemtin: say you're writing a book, and when they ask six months later, 'I think I better start writing that book.'
- 4
Barrier three — create inspiration through action
Stop waiting for the perfect time or the inspired feeling — fear dampens inspiration, so it rarely comes. Take the first step. You do not need to know the second step; you'll figure it out after the first.
Pro tip Action is a plan. You don't need to know the plan — you'll figure out the plan after you start.
Watch out Over-planning is the disguised form of this barrier. It feels like progress and produces none.
In the wild
Nemtin used his host's own podcast as the case. She had the idea, and by his estimate 99% of people with that idea never take the first step because of fear of failure and fear of what others think. There was never a perfect time to start, her ducks were never going to be in a row, and she was never going to feel completely inspired because fear dampens inspiration. She started anyway.
→ As soon as the podcast launched she saw the reaction, and the energy and inspiration compounded from there. Within two months she had ten volunteers working for free in a Slack channel.
Nemtin's illustration of manufactured accountability: announce on a podcast that this year your number one goal is to write a book. The host says great. Six months later you run into them and they ask how the book is coming.
→ The social debt created by the share converts a deadline-less personal goal into one with real pressure — 'I better start writing that book.'
Common mistakes
Waiting to feel ready
Inspiration rarely hits, and fear actively dampens it, so waiting for the inspired feeling is waiting for a state that the barrier itself prevents. The order is inverted: action produces inspiration, not the other way round.
Planning instead of stepping
Nemtin: 'sometimes we just plan too much and we forget that action is a plan.' Demanding to know step two before taking step one is how the third barrier disguises itself as diligence.
Not asking for help on personal goals
At work you go to a leader or mentor the moment you hit a wall. On personal goals fear keeps you silent, so you attempt them alone in your head and cut your own odds of success.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone with a written personal goal that has sat untouched for months.
Not ideal for
Team or organisational goals, which already carry deadlines and external accountability by default.
From the transcript
“99% of people will have the idea, they'll want to do it, but they won't take that first step because of fear.”
“With these personal goals there's no deadlines and that's a huge problem, that's why we push them.”
“You're the architect of your own inspiration through action.”
“Sometimes we just plan too much and we forget that action is a plan. You don't need to know the plan, you'll figure out the…”
From the episode
Ben Nemtin: Badass Bucket Lists
Ben Nemtin