How to make 2025 anti #goals
⭐️ FREE WORKSHOP ⭐️
I’m hosting a free journalling workshop for freelancers and business owners who are craving a more flexible, meaningful and growth-oriented (not results-oriented) framework to guide their decisions and actions in 2025. Sign up here.
Last year, I managed to qualify as a coach, work with some dream copywriting clients, move to a city I’ve always wanted to live in, and start a whole new business.
It feels weird to write that down. Not only because I live in fear of boastfulness—and there were also plenty of setbacks, low moments and general existential weirdness—but because I decided to make 2024 deliberately anti-#goals.
As a recovering high (read: over) achiever, I wanted to see whether it was possible for my hopes and dreams to materialise without setting rigid parameters around them.
When goal-setting can become a problem
There is a time, a place and a person for structured goal-setting. If you’re prone to chaos, defining specific things you’d like to achieve and working out how to get there can be really helpful.
This is, of course, the basis of most coaching—and I’ve had a whole load of training in goal-based techniques.
But I’ll be really honest: goal-based coaching can be actively unhelpful for a lot of people.
I learned this in theory when I was writing for the wonderful team at Famn (go check out
for fascinating insights on psychology in the workplace from Head Coach, ) and it’s played out in practice with many of my own coaching clients.The truth is, not everyone benefits from more structure. In fact, if you’re a high achiever, you might be better served by learning to loosen your grip on control.
Signs you’re a high achiever
I work with what I like to call recovering high achievers.
The “high achiever” bit:
If you’re a high achiever, you might relate to some of the traits below…
The recovery bit:
However, you might be waking up to the ways in which these traits don’t serve you. For example…
You spent years climbing the corporate ladder, chasing an impressive job title. But now you’ve got there, you can’t help but wonder…is this it?
You gave everything to your job—your time, your energy, your weekends. But now you’re burnt out, blindsided by a layoff, or realising you’ve neglected other parts of your life in the process.
You’ve ticked all the boxes: the salary, the dream home, the picture-perfect relationship. So why do you feel so unfulfilled or even trapped?
While we never want to blame or get rid of that high achieving part of you (after all, it has many incredibly useful qualities!), you might be starting to examine and challenge some of its beliefs about “success” and self-worth.
Why goal-setting can be unhelpful for high achievers
We tend to approach resolutions or goals through rigid parameters—strict deadlines, hard metrics and specific outcomes like “I want to run a marathon in 3 hours, 45 minutes and 8 seconds”, “I want to earn six figures”, or “I want to find a boyfriend by Christmas”.
But if you’re a high achiever, this approach can exacerbate some of the psychological drivers, shadows and patterns that hold you back. Like:
Perfectionism: you tend to focus more on what you haven’t achieved than what you have, which can lead to an endless cycle of dissatisfaction.
The need for external validation: your self-worth is derived from outcomes, external markers and other people’s ideas of success, rather than enjoying the process, your authentic wants and desires, or intrinsic motivation.
An all-or-nothing mindset: everything is either a success or a failure, so you can overlook the value of progress or small wins.
Greater risk of burnout: you push yourself to do too much, too hard—leaving you vulnerable to physical or emotional overwhelm and exhaustion.
Tunnel vision: you know what they say—life often has other plans. If you invest all your time and energy into one thing, you might miss out on other opportunities or lessons along the way.
Harsh self-criticism: if your identity is deeply enmeshed with your achievements, you’ll be extra hard on yourself if you don’t meet your goals.
What is helpful for high achievers
None of this is to say that you should give up on your dreams or downplay your ambition—perhaps you just need to go about it a different way.
You may have heard of the term “growth mindset”. It’s the idea that long-term success and resilience is built through embracing failure, experimenting with new things, valuing the journey over the destination, and adapting to change.
What this really boils down to is acceptance.
Rather than trying to be something or someone you are not, it’s about getting to know who you really are. Rather than trying to control everything/everyone all the time, it’s about accepting that there are some things you cannot change.
In other words, it’s not “new year, new me”, but “new year, same me”—so instead of striving for something different or other, how do you work with what you’ve already got?
The power of intentions vs. resolutions
There have been many January 1sts where, high off the fumes of a freshly printed calendar, I decided that this would be the year I’d become fluent in Spanish/write a bestselling book/start every day with an hour of meditation/cultivate the perfect capsule wardrobe/remember to meal prep all my lunches/take up running.
I am still yet to do any of these things—either because they are more to do with being a shinier, more “perfect” version of myself, or because life inevitably gets in the way.
What I’ve started doing instead is replacing rigid goals and resolutions with more fluid, meaningful intentions: a word of the year and a handful of phrases that emphasise process over perfection, allow for grace and flexibility if life has other ideas, and—most importantly—are authentically and intrinsically important to me, not society’s definition of what “success” looks like.
I did this last year and documented my intentions in a Notion page. I only looked at this page a couple of times in 2024, but the intentions stuck with me. And when I opened it again at the end of the year, I was amazed to see that I'd actually done most of the things I wanted to, without thinking too hard about it. On a subconscious level, my intentions had been working their “magic” (and before you mistake intention-setting as woo-woo, it’s actually backed up by neuroscience).
If you're a freelancer, business owner or anti-girlboss type who's thinking about what 2025 could hold, but reluctant to join the #goals parade, I'm hosting a free online journalling workshop on Tuesday 14th January from 6-7pm GMT.
Guided by some questions and prompts, we’ll be setting some intentions for 2025, so that this year, you can honour and cultivate what feels true to you, rather than setting yourself up to “fail” (although when we’re in recovery, there’s no such thing 😉).
It'll be super relaxed and as interactive as you like—cameras on or off, depending on what you need that day.
👉 Get the details and sign up here 👈
Hope to see some of you there!
In the meantime, what’s your perspective on goal-setting? Do you find that it helps you, or sneakily holds you back? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
About me + Messy Work
If you’re new here, I’m Lucia—a freelance copywriter, accredited coach, avid journaller, and recovering high achiever.
This newsletter is dedicated to making sense of, moving past and really celebrating the messy work of life—through personal essays, loose guides, evolving ideas, and astute pop culture references.
Learn more about my copywriting and coaching here.
If you’ve enjoyed this post, please give it a ❤️, share with a mate or hit subscribe.
It’s free, it helps more people discover my work, and it makes me do this:
omg i love this! i totally identify with being an overachiever and had my self-worth wrapped in my productivity. i find my most productive structure is working on things i'm genuinely interested in that moment and pivoting as needed! 😊