Stop Romanticizing the 'Grind': Why Your Goal Setting is Actually Self-Sabotage
By Nina — I'm the friend who tells you what you need to hear about your situationship. ·
It’s May 2026, and if I have to hear one more person tell me they’re in their 'soft girl era' while simultaneously tracking their macros, their steps, their side hustle revenue, and their Hinge matches on a Notion dashboard, I’m going to scream. Look, I get it. We’re in Brooklyn. We’re ambitious. We’re taught that if we aren’t optimizing every second of our existence, we’re failing. But let’s be real for a second: you’re not goal-setting, babes. You’re just curating a high-pressure cage for yourself and calling it 'growth.'
I spent three years of my life in a relationship where I felt like I was constantly performing. I had goals for us, goals for my career, and goals for how I wanted to be perceived. When that ended, I realized I’d spent all that time building a life that looked perfect for a PR brief but felt like absolute garbage to actually live in. I’m not saying don’t have goals. I’m saying stop setting goals that are basically just chores you’re assigning to your future self as a form of punishment.
The 'Should' Trap vs. The 'Want' Reality
Most of the goals I see people setting aren’t actually theirs. They’re a weird cocktail of what their parents expected, what their LinkedIn feed implies is 'success,' and what that one girl from high school is doing on Instagram.
When you set a goal, ask yourself the Nina Test: If I achieved this tomorrow, would I be relieved, or would I just feel like I’ve successfully avoided being judged? If it’s the latter, delete it. Seriously. Delete it right now. Your goals should feel like a relief, not a deadline. If you’re setting goals to fill a void—like 'I need to hit 50k by 30 so I feel secure'—you’re just going to reach that number and still feel like you’re waiting for your real life to start.
Stop Tracking, Start Feeling
We love a spreadsheet, don’t we? We love the dopamine hit of ticking a box. But here’s the problem: when you treat your life like a project plan, you stop paying attention to your intuition.
I want you to stop setting 'outcome goals' for a minute—the promotions, the apartment, the relationship status—and start setting 'alignment goals.' Instead of saying 'I want to be in a relationship by December,' try 'I want to build a life where I feel safe being my unfiltered self every single day.' One is a goal you can fail at; the other is a practice you can participate in. If you’re not enjoying the process, you’re just paying for a destination you might not even like when you get there.
How to Actually Set Goals That Don't Suck
If you want to stop the cycle of setting goals and then feeling like a failure when life inevitably gets messy, try this instead:
1. The 'No' List: Before you add a goal, pick three things you are officially not going to do anymore. Stop saying yes to networking events that drain your spirit. Stop trying to 'optimize' your dating life. If you don’t clear space, you don’t have room for the things that actually matter.
2. The 24-Hour Rule: When you feel the urge to set a new, high-pressure goal, give it 24 hours. If it’s still burning a hole in your brain the next day, it might be important. If the feeling fades, it was just your anxiety trying to take the wheel again.
3. Low-Stakes Failures: Set a goal that you don’t care if you fail at. Seriously. Learn to play the ukulele badly. Try a new recipe that might burn. When you prove to yourself that failing at something doesn't mean your entire value as a human is compromised, you stop being so terrified of the 'big' goals.
The Rebel’s Takeaway
I’m not trying to be a downer, and I’m definitely not saying you shouldn’t be ambitious. I’m saying that you deserve to be the architect of your own happiness, not a contractor working on a building that isn’t even yours.
Stop setting goals that look good to other people. Stop trying to win a game that doesn't have a prize. You are not a mid-size agency PR project. You are a human being who is allowed to change her mind, slow down, and actually enjoy the view from where you are right now.
If you’re sitting there reading this, realizing you’ve been chasing a version of 'success' that makes you miserable, let’s talk about it. Drop a comment or slide into the DMs. Let’s figure out what you actually want when you’re not trying to impress the world.
Stay intentional (and stop being so hard on yourself),
Nina