Why Your Goal Setting Is Broken (And How to Fix It)
By Dante — Emotionally available. Yes, we exist. No, I won't explain your ex to you. Okay fine, I will. ·
It’s July, and You’re Probably Failing
It’s July 2026. If you’re anything like the version of me from five years ago, you’re looking at that list of 'New Year’s Resolutions' you scribbled in a notebook back in January, and you’re feeling a familiar, dull thud of shame in your chest. Maybe you hit the gym for three weeks, or maybe you told yourself you’d finally launch that portfolio site, and now… well, now it’s mid-summer, and the motivation has evaporated like a puddle on a Chicago sidewalk.
Here’s the thing: You aren’t lazy. You aren’t broken. You’re just using a flawed system. In UX design, if users aren’t clicking the button, we don’t blame the users—we blame the interface. Your goal-setting process is a bad interface. It’s clunky, it’s inaccessible, and it’s designed for a version of you that doesn’t exist anymore.
Stop Setting Goals for a Stranger
Most people set goals based on who they think they should be. 'I should write a book.' 'I should be a manager.' 'I should run a marathon.' Notice the trend? It’s all 'shoulds.' And 'should' is the quickest way to kill your internal drive.
When I was 27, I was obsessed with achieving things just to prove to my ex—and honestly, to my parents—that I was 'doing fine' after my breakup. My goals were performative. I was trying to build a resume for a life I didn’t actually want to live.
If your goal doesn’t solve a problem for you—not for your LinkedIn feed, not for your aunt at Thanksgiving, but for your day-to-day sanity—you aren’t going to hit it. Before you set another goal, ask yourself: 'What is the actual friction in my life I’m trying to remove?' If you want to lose weight, don’t make the goal 'lose 20 pounds.' Make the goal 'decrease the friction between me and healthy energy.' The goal is the outcome, but the system is the change in behavior.
The “Minimum Viable Progress” Method
In tech, we ship a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). It’s not perfect, but it works. Why do we treat our personal goals like they need to be a finished, polished masterpiece on day one?
If you want to read more, don’t set a goal to read 50 books this year. Set a goal to read one page before you check your phone in the morning. That’s it. It sounds stupidly small, right? That’s the point. The brain hates massive, intimidating tasks—it triggers a fight-or-flight response that makes you want to crawl under the covers and scroll TikTok instead.
Shrink the task until it’s impossible to say no to. If you can’t manage one page, do one sentence. The habit isn't reading; the habit is showing up to the task. Once you’re there, you’ll usually do more anyway. But if you don't show up, you get zero.
The “Post-Mortem” Ritual
I learned this in therapy, though my therapist probably wouldn't call it this. Every month, I do a mini 'post-mortem' on my life. I look at what I planned to do, and I look at what actually happened.
You have to be brutally honest here. Don’t make excuses. If you didn’t work on your side project because you were exhausted from your 9-to-5, that’s not 'lack of discipline.' That’s a signal. It means your energy management is off.
Maybe your goal wasn’t realistic given your current bandwidth. Maybe you need to cut something else out to make room for it. Treat your failures like data points, not moral failings. When I stopped beating myself up for not being a 'perfect' achiever, I ironically became ten times more productive. It turns out, when you stop being your own worst boss, you actually want to work for yourself again.
Designing Your Environment
Willpower is a finite resource. If you’re relying on sheer grit to reach your goals, you’ve already lost. You need to design your environment so that the path of least resistance leads to your goal.
If you want to code at night, leave your laptop open on your desk with the IDE already running. If you want to stop doom-scrolling, leave your phone in the kitchen when you go to bed. These are tiny design tweaks. They aren't 'life hacks'—they’re just removing the friction. Be the architect of your own habits. If your environment is working against you, your willpower will never be enough to overcome it.
It’s Never Too Late to Pivot
If you’re reading this in July and you feel like you’ve 'wasted' half the year, let me tell you: throw the calendar out. Time is a social construct, but your current reality is very real. You can pivot your goals at any moment. You don’t need a New Year’s resolution to change your direction. You just need to decide that what you were doing isn't working, and try something that actually fits your life as it stands today.
Stop trying to optimize your life into a spreadsheet. Start making small, sustainable choices that actually make your day-to-day feel a little bit lighter. That’s the real work.
So, what’s one thing you’re working on that actually matters to you? Not to your ego, not to your boss, but to you? If you’re feeling stuck or just want to vent about how 'goal setting' feels like a trap, let’s chat. My DMs are open, and I promise, I’m much better at helping you sort through your priorities than I am at explaining why your ex didn't text back.