You're Not Bad at Setting Goals, but Your Approach Is

Most people don’t struggle with goals because they lack discipline. They struggle because the way they’re setting goals is broken from the start.

In this episode of This Is Nothing New, Michelle breaks down the real reasons your goals fall apart. From goals that were never actually yours, to plans that are too vague to execute, to systems that don’t account for what happens when things get hard. And in some cases, the deeper issue is avoidance.

If you’ve ever started the year with momentum and lost it by February, or you keep circling the same goal without real progress, this episode unpacks what’s actually going on underneath that pattern.

Michelle walks through what actually works: getting clear on what you want right now (not what you think you should want), building a plan you can actually execute, using a pre-mortem to anticipate obstacles before they show up, and creating checkpoints so progress is visible before the finish line.

Remember, you’re not bad at goals. Your approach has been wrong.

Interested in learning more about 1on1 coaching opportunities with Michelle? Click here to book a free discovery call.

Connect with Michelle:

Website: michellegruening.com
Instagram: @michellegruening
LinkedIn: Michelle Gruening

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey y'all, and welcome to This Is Nothing New, the podcast where we drop the trends and get back to the basics. I'm your host, Michelle Gruning, and today we are talking about one of the most highly contested, differently opinioned, everyone has their own approach to it topic, and that is goal setting. So, real talk. It is officially the second half of 2026. And I want to ask you something. How are your goals going? And I don't mean that in like a gotcha way, because if you're like most of the people I have worked with over the past several years, one of a few things has happened. Either you have set goals at the start of the year with real intention. And then somewhere around February, they quietly disappeared. Or maybe you've never set them at all because you think, honestly, what is the point? I've tried it before and it didn't work. Here's what I want you to know before we go any farther. You're not bad at setting goals. Your approach has been wrong. So today I'm going to show you exactly what I mean because after years of working with dozens of clients through this stuff, I've seen the patterns. I know what's actually stopping people. And it's not laziness, it's not a lack of motivation. And it's definitely not because you should have bought that $47 course. So I want to walk you through what I've actually seen and heard things from my own life, from my years of working with clients, because I think when you hear these, you might recognize yourself in at least one of them. So we're going to talk a little bit about why they fail. So the first reason I have seen goals fail is because they are not actually yours. Now, some of you may know my story about the ukulele. But if you don't, here's a story. So a few years ago, I was in a mastermind group. I was a participant in a mastermind group, and we were setting our 90-day goals. It was the end of the year, it was the final quarter. And I decided one of my goals was going to be to learn how to play the ukulele. And I set that goal because I always thought people who played the ukulele were just super cool and just super, you know, casual. And I just had this like vision of myself of playing the ukulele on the beach and wanting to be perceived in the way that I perceived people who played the ukulele. So the thing about this goal is that it was terrible. It wasn't even for myself. I was setting a goal for other people's perceptions of me. I wanted to be seen as someone with a kind of like easy, creative energy. And at that point, I clearly didn't realize that I can't control what other people think of me. But I finally realized that I didn't care. I didn't care about playing the ukulele. I just wanted to be seen as someone who did. And when I had that realization, it was like the glass shattered because I realized that, yeah, playing musical instruments is cool, but I was setting that goal for somebody else. I wasn't setting it for me. I don't even like the beach. Why would I want to play the ukulele at a place that I don't even like? And so I keep that ukulele behind me and near my desk as a reminder. It's there on purpose. It's a reminder to set goals for myself and not those expectations of others. And I've learned a lot from watching other people do the same thing for years. It's that when you set a goal that isn't actually yours, your body knows that. The second you write it down, you feel dread. You write it down and then you think about how am I ever going to be consistent with this? Because deep down, you're not actually trying to get there. You just want to appear like you're going somewhere. And then when no one's watching, your momentum disappears, your motivation disappears, because that goal was never about you. And if that's hitting you right now, if there's a goal on your list that belongs to someone else's version of you, someone else's definition of success for you, that deserves a revisit. Now, the second reason that a lot of goals fail is because the dream is way too big and the steps are way too vague. And that is not a good combination. So I once had a client who would set these enormous, exciting goals, which is great. We want to set goals from a place of ambition. I'm not telling y'all to not be ambitious. So set them from a place of ambition. But this client would set these enormous goals and then have absolutely zero small steps to get there. So every time she sat down to make progress, she didn't know where to start. She would get super disappointed in herself because that big thing wasn't actually coming to fruition, at least not fast enough. And so she'd give up every time. And this client was one of those high achieving, super smart people. It's not that she was lazy and it's not that she was lost. It's that nobody had ever shown her how to break the vision down into something she could actually take action on that day in that moment, at least not until she started working with me. Now, the third reason that goals don't work is because the framework ends at the finish line. Now I say that because most goal setting systems are asking you what you want to achieve. They help you get super specific and time-bound. If anyone's ever heard of the SMAR goal setting framework, all of that is to help you get clear and to pick a timeline. And that's fine. But what that specific goal framework lacks, as well as a lot of other ones, is they're never asking you, what are you going to do when it gets hard? Most of these frameworks don't have an answer for that. And so when it happens, and it will, people just assume they're a failure and they get down on themselves, they tell themselves they're not disciplined enough. Or one of the worst things is that that goal doesn't even actually matter. The last reason we're going to talk about today for why goals tend to fail, and this is the one that nobody talks about. And it actually comes directly from one of my past clients. She told me that she didn't set goals. And she didn't set goals because then she couldn't fail. Y'all. Well, let's sit with that for a minute. There are people who are not setting goals because if they don't, they cannot fail. This client wasn't avoiding goals because she wasn't, she was lazy or she didn't care. She felt like she was protecting herself. And if we never commit to something out loud, then we can never be disappointed that it doesn't happen. If we don't set goals, then we can't let ourselves down. If we don't set goals that push us and stretch us, then we can just stay safe in our comfort zone. And I've seen so many people fall into that trap. They don't want to set goals because they don't want to disappoint themselves. But that all comes back to not knowing how to set goals for themselves. And that, I and I get it, I really do. But staying safe in that comfort zone will never move you forward. So if the flashy stuff doesn't work, and most of these frameworks actually leave you just like hanging after your vision board is done and you have your smart goals and you're clear. What does work? We're going to talk about five things. Number one, get clear on what you actually want. Not what you think looks good or not what you are trying to match that your industry peers are doing. You know, we're not comparing ourselves, we're not setting goals from what we thought we wanted at the beginning of the year. I'm talking about what do you want right now in this season of your life? Number two, create a plan that actually works for you and it stretches you. So this is something that is not just going to be super easy for you to do every day, but it's something you can do every day if you stretch yourself and expand your capacity. So at the beginning of this year, January 1st, 2026, I set a goal for myself to go on a walk outside every single day. Now, I did not set a time requirement. I did not set a distance requirement. My goal was outside, walking, and every day. And we are officially halfway through the year and I have not missed a single day, y'all. And I'm super proud of myself for that. But that this goal works for me. And I have shown up for myself and this goal every single day because it is genuinely mine. I love to be outside. And the simplicity of this goal, I have no complicated tracking system. I don't have an aura ring or an Apple Watch or a step counter. I'm not tying into performance metrics. But I created a goal for myself. And it still asks something of me every day. But the the real sweet spot of this goal for me is that it's simple and it's mine. Number three, the third thing that actually works. This is a step that so many people miss. And it's one thing I always do with my clients whenever we set goals. So the third thing is to do something called a pre-mortem. Now, everyone's heard of a post-mortem, but a pre-mortem is what helps you get super realistic and super clear. So a pre-mortem goes like this. Let's say, you know, we're at the second half of the year and you're going to start setting your goals. So a pre-mortem, I would say, imagine it is the end of the year. It is December 31st, and you did not meet your goal. Why? That's the pre-mortem exercise. It's not in a way to get back, you know, to get down on yourself. It's not to be pessimistic about it. This is a place to get strategic because you know yourself pretty well. And you know you go through patterns. And patterns, once you recognize them, are predictable. So you can figure out what derails you. Because if you can name the obstacle before it shows up, you can create a counter-strategy. So you're not getting blindsided because you already know how to respond. Number four, set those real progress checkpoints, not just a finish line. The finish line is great. Everybody envisions themselves at the end of their goal. But just because you say and envision yourself standing at the finish line of your first marathon doesn't mean you're going to actually be able to run it. You got to train, you got to set progress points. And so people can feel a lot of times like they're failing because they're only measuring themselves against the end result. And if that end result is months and months away, every day between now and the end of the goal feels like you are either winning or you are losing, and there is no in-between. So when you create checkpoints or milestones or benchmarks, whatever you want to call them, you can change that. When you set those benchmarks, it gives you a smaller wins to celebrate and it gives you more opportunities to course correct before things get way too on track. Now, I'm not talking about obsessive tracking, but really intentional moments to ask yourself am I on track towards my goal? What's been working? What excuses have I been making? Maybe what needs to shift. This is all about recalibration. And the last one, and I've said it a few times throughout this so far, be on your own team, y'all. Being on your own team is doing that pre-mortem that we talked about, step three. Being on your own team means being realistic with your patterns and the habits that you tend to fall into. It's it's asking yourself, okay, this has happened. What can I take from it? What can I learn? And how can I move forward? This is the real work. Now, we're in the second half of the year, and we've talked a lot about why goals fail, how to actually set them up correctly, how to make them stick. So let's do a little reframe as we start closing out this episode. We have six months of the year left, and you have an opportunity to make them even better than the last six, or to be in the same place when we get to the end of the year. You know more about yourself than you did in January of this year. You've had six months of real life data. You know what has worked, what hasn't. Hopefully, you know what goals are actually yours and which ones are just being set because of someone else's expectations. Hopefully, you have a bit of evidence on maybe what's derailed you so far. And you can put that into your self-awareness bucket and start seeing those patterns more consistently. So ask yourself, what do you actually want? What would make you look back and feel proud? Not just impressed with yourself, not just relieved, but genuinely proud of yourself. Start there. So, as you all know, at the ends of these episodes, I always leave y'all with a challenge. And I would love for y'all to actually do this one, especially if you are someone who is serious about setting goals for the second half of the year. So I want you to grab a notebook or open your notes app or save this for later if you're driving, and then answer three questions. Question one What is one goal that is actually mine? Something I genuinely want, not just something I think I should want. Question two. What is the most likely reason that this goal has failed in the past? And question three What is one thing I can do in the next 48 hours to move forward? Those are the three questions. Just three questions, one action in the next couple days. That is how it starts. And if anything in today's episode really hit you, if you heard yourself in one of those client stories, or maybe you've been circling that same goal for years and you are ready to actually do something different, I would love to talk. I work with women one-on-one and we do exactly what we talked about today. We get clear on what you actually want. Then we build the plan and we make sure you're set up to follow through. You get held accountable, you generate momentum, and you stay on your own team. If you're interested in learning more about what that looks like, you can book a free discovery call with me. I'll make sure the link is in the show notes. And this is no pressure, it's just a conversation to help you move forward. Now, next week, I'm taking everything we talked about today and I'm taking it to the roof of Africa. In February of 2024, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, which is the world's tallest freestanding mountain. And every single thing that I teach and talk about goals was put to the test at 19,341 feet on top of Mount Kilimanjaro in the worst weather my guide of 13 years had ever seen on the mountain. It's one of my favorite stories, and I cannot wait to share with you. So make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss it next week. We've talked a lot about goals, and I hope that what you take away is that you are not bad at goals. You never were. It's just maybe you were sold a version of goal setting that skips the hardest part, the part where we actually have to do the work and stay on our own team and keep moving forward when it stops feeling exciting. And here's the thing all of this, everything we talked about today, this is nothing new. It's just something you needed to remember. Now, you've got the second half of 2026 in front of you. It's time to make it a reality. And remember, you've got this. So until then, I'll catch y'all next time.