I’ve always been a goal setter. In college, I decided I wanted to graduate early. Once I made that decision, I researched every possible option, talked to my academic advisor, took a three-week astronomy class over winter break, added a correspondence course, and somehow pieced together a plan that let me finish a full year ahead of schedule. I still remember walking into my advisor’s office with the whole thing mapped out. She went through it looking for the problem. There wasn’t one. I had figured it out.
At that point in my life, that was pretty much how I approached goals: decide what I wanted, make the plan, and do whatever needed to be done to get there. In some ways, I still really like that part of myself. But I’ve also learned something since then — life doesn’t always cooperate with the plan. There are kids, jobs, relationships, health, finances, and responsibilities you didn’t have when you made the goal in the first place. Sometimes your priorities change. Sometimes you change. And I’ve had to learn that adjusting a goal to fit the life I’m actually living isn’t always the same thing as giving up on it.
Sometimes the Goal Isn't the Problem
I think when a goal starts falling apart, our first instinct is often to assume we’re the problem — that we weren’t disciplined enough, didn’t want it badly enough, should have tried harder, or need to get more organized. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes we haven’t given something the time or attention it needs. But sometimes we’re trying to follow a plan that doesn’t make sense anymore.
Maybe you decided you were going to exercise five mornings a week, and then your work schedule changed. Maybe you planned to finish a degree within two years, but financially, taking fewer classes makes more sense right now. Maybe you set a goal for your business and then realized reaching it on your original timeline would mean giving up every evening with your family. The goal itself might still matter to you. It’s the way you planned to get there that no longer works. Those are two very different things — and it’s worth being honest with yourself about which one you’re actually facing.
Go Back to Why You Wanted It
When I’m trying to decide whether a goal still makes sense, I find it helpful to go underneath the goal itself and ask what I was actually hoping it would give me. Maybe you wanted to change careers because you wanted more flexibility. Maybe you wanted to exercise because you wanted more energy. Maybe you wanted to earn more money because you wanted your family to have more breathing room, or wanted to go back to school because you wanted work that felt more meaningful.
The specific goal is one way of getting there. It isn’t necessarily the only way. That distinction matters, because it’s easy to get so attached to the original version of a plan that you stop asking whether it’s still getting you where you actually want to go.
Your Life Gets a Vote
This is something I’ve had to learn as I’ve gotten older: a goal doesn’t exist separately from the rest of your life. It has to live somewhere. It takes time, energy, money, attention — sometimes childcare, sometimes help from other people — and all of those resources are limited. That doesn’t mean you can’t do hard things. It means a realistic goal has to account for what else you’re already managing.
There may be times when you have the capacity to go all in on something, and other times in your life when simply maintaining what you’ve already built is an accomplishment in itself. Neither says anything about how motivated or capable you are. You’re simply making the choice that makes the most sense for your life at that time.
Adjusting the Timeline Isn't Failure
This one can be hard, especially if you’re someone who likes a plan. Once you’ve decided something should happen by a certain date, moving that date can feel suspiciously like failure. But it’s worth asking where the deadline actually came from. Sometimes there’s a real one — a program has an application date, a certification expires, something genuinely needs to happen by a particular time. Other deadlines are ones we made up ourselves: I should have this figured out by 40. I should be further along by now. I said I’d finish this by the end of the year. Once we’ve created a deadline like that, we start treating it as though someone engraved it in stone. You’re allowed to change the timeline. Taking longer to reach something doesn’t automatically make the result less meaningful.
You Are Allowed to Change the Goal, Too
Sometimes the plan needs to change. And sometimes, if you’re really honest with yourself, the goal does too. That one’s harder. We can spend years working toward something simply because at one point we decided it mattered — because we’ve invested money in it, told everyone we’re doing it, already put years into getting there. Walking away can feel like wasting all of that effort.
But the version of you who set the goal was working with the information she had at the time. You’re allowed to have new information now. You’re allowed to realize you don’t actually want the promotion. You’re allowed to decide the career you’ve been working toward isn’t right for you. You’re allowed to discover that something you thought would make you happy doesn’t — and you’re even allowed to change your mind without having a dramatic reason for it. Sometimes a goal served its purpose in what you learned while pursuing it, even if you never actually reached the original finish line.
Be Careful About Turning Flexibility Into Avoidance
There’s another side to this, though. “Giving myself grace” can become a really convenient explanation for never doing the uncomfortable thing. Sometimes the goal fits just fine — it’s just hard. Maybe you’re scared, or overwhelmed by the first step, or waiting until you feel completely ready. Maybe perfectionism has convinced you that if you can’t do it exactly the way you imagined, there’s no point starting. That’s worth being honest about, too.
There’s a real difference between adjusting a goal because your circumstances or priorities have genuinely changed, and abandoning something important every time it becomes uncomfortable. The question isn’t is this hard — most meaningful things are hard at some point. A better question is whether it still matters to you, and whether the way you’re pursuing it still makes sense for your life.
Make the Goal Smaller Before You Make It Disappear
Sometimes we think our only choices are to keep doing the whole thing or quit entirely. There’s usually a lot of room in between. If you can’t exercise five days a week, could you do two? If you can’t take three classes this semester, could you take one? If you can’t give ten hours a week to the project, what could happen with two? If you’re too overwhelmed to make the entire career change, could you spend an hour researching one possibility?
A smaller step isn’t meaningless because it’s smaller. Sometimes it’s exactly what allows a goal to survive a busy time, and once life opens up again, you can increase the pace. You don’t always have to choose between pushing through and walking away. Sometimes, you can adjust.
Notice the Progress That Doesn't Look Like the Original Plan
This is probably the part I have to remind myself of most. When I have a picture in my head of what progress is supposed to look like, I’m very good at noticing all the ways reality doesn’t match it. But progress can look like changing direction before you’ve invested another five years in something that isn’t right. It can look like setting a boundary that gives you enough energy to keep going, or asking for help, or doing less but doing it consistently. It can even look like stopping. The original plan isn’t the only evidence that you’re moving forward — sometimes the adjustment is the progress.
Goals Are Supposed to Serve Your Life
I still like goals. I like having something I’m working toward, making plans, figuring out how all the pieces fit together. I don’t think that part of me is going anywhere. But I’m less interested now in proving that I can follow a plan exactly as I wrote it, because the point of a goal was never to successfully follow a plan. The point is to help you build a life that actually matters to you — and if the plan stops doing that, you’re allowed to change it.
That might mean slowing down. It might mean taking a different route, asking for help, or deciding that something you once wanted isn’t what you want anymore. None of that automatically means you failed. Sometimes it means you were paying enough attention to your life to notice that something needed to change.
A Few Questions Worth Sitting With
- Is there a goal you’re struggling with right now because the goal is wrong — or because the original plan no longer fits?
- What were you actually hoping this goal would give you?
- Has something about your life, priorities, or circumstances changed since you first set it?
- Are you adjusting because you genuinely need to, or avoiding something because it feels uncomfortable?
- What would this goal look like if you allowed it to take longer, get smaller, or happen differently?
- Is there a goal you’re holding onto mostly because you’ve already invested so much in it?
- Is it really failing a goal if you set it aside to show up for someone you care about?
You don’t need to answer all of these at once. But if you’re beating yourself up for not following the plan, it may be worth asking whether the problem is your motivation — or the plan itself.
If you’re a working woman trying to figure out what comes next — whether that’s a career decision, a goal you’ve been struggling to reach, or a bigger question about what you actually want — this is exactly the kind of thing we can work through in therapy. Sometimes moving forward isn’t about pushing harder. It’s about getting clear on what still fits, and giving yourself permission to change what doesn’t. If you’re in Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, or Colorado, I’d love to help you sort it out.
