Achieving Your Goals Without Fighting Yourself

Five Shifts Toward Self-Trust, Alignment, and Sustainable Progress

What if the reason you struggle to achieve your goals has nothing to do with discipline, willpower, or motivation?

What if it has everything to do with how well you understand yourself—and how much compassion you bring to the process?

For years, I struggled to meet the goals I set. Not because I didn’t care. Not because I didn’t try. But because every unmet goal became proof that something was wrong with me. Every time I failed at achieving a goal, I’d beat myself up. I’d call myself lazy, or good-for-nothing, or I’d criticize myself, which of course, made me feel awful. And the more I believed that, the harder it became to move forward.

It wasn’t until I began approaching my goals through self-acceptance, self-understanding, and spiritual alignment that things began to change for me.

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by your own goals, burned out by productivity culture, or quietly discouraged by how hard it feels to follow through, you’re not alone. Many of us struggle not because we lack discipline—but because we’ve never been taught how to set goals in a way that honors our energy, self-worth, and inner rhythms.

Looking back, I can see there was an element of not feeling like I deserved to reach my goals. I even tried calling them anything but goals, such as intentions or tasks. And they still wouldn’t get done.

If someone else gave me a deadline or goal to reach, I’d do everything in my power to reach it. I’d stay up late, work all hours, etc. I didn’t want to disappoint them, or make them lose trust in me. But if it was a deadline or goal I set, pfft, that was easy to set aside and not meet. It didn’t matter if I disappointed myself, because I wasn’t worth it.

Quite often, the reason I didn’t reach my goals wasn’t because I was lazy or I didn’t put in the work. It was because I was looking at the final outcome and everything I had to do to reach it. It became a huge elephant, and one that I couldn’t possibly achieve. I fell into overwhelm and I’d give up. There was just too much to do.

Why Traditional Goal Setting Often Leads to Burnout

I do much better now in achieving my goals. So what happened? Why can I now achieve my goals when I couldn’t in the past?

These five things help me be more successful in reaching my goals. They didn’t make me perfect—but they did make my goals achievable in a way that felt honest, sustainable, and kind.

Step 1: Accept Yourself and Release Self-Criticism

I’ve done a lot of self-esteem and self-confidence work. I’m more comfortable with myself and in my own skin.

Tools that have helped me immensely in this self-healing and transformation are EFT, or tapping, along with affirmations. I examined my negative, limiting beliefs I held about myself and where they came from through a lot of soul searching and journaling.

This helped me determine whether those were actually true for me. Nine times out of ten, the belief was societal or familial conditioning I’d accepted as my truth without questioning it.

Afterward, I’d do tapping to clear the old energetics from my system and install new beliefs. Following this with affirmations supported both my conscious and subconscious mind in accepting these new beliefs as my truth.

I also work with a group of Goddesses who have helped me attune my energy to their qualities.

• Hecate helps me evaluate my choices to determine which path is right for me.
• Freya helps me recognize my worth and value isn’t tied to what I produce or how I look.
• Lakshmi teaches me that abundance and thrival are our birthright, and I deserve it simply for being who I am.
• Lilith has helped me be my authentic Self, unapologetically, boldly, and fiercely.
• Uzume guides me in audaciously accepting my feminine divine presence.

This wasn’t an overnight, one-and-done process. Self-transformation and healing happen in layers, but they do happen. Now, I believe in myself and know I deserve to achieve my goals. I’ve stopped beating myself up for not living up to other people’s expectations of me. Disappointing myself has become just as bad as disappointing someone else.

 Step 2: Understand Your Energy and How You’re Wired

I learned about my Human Design and my Clifton Strengths. This has been a huge game-changer for me! It works in tandem with accepting myself. Knowing my Human Design* and Clifton Strengths allows me to understand better how I see and approach the world. They also help me realize that there’s nothing wrong with me. I can accept my quirks as just part of who I am, the way I’m designed, and how my brain is wired, not something I need to change.

In Human Design, I’m a 6/2 Energy Projector. This means that I have access to several of the energy motors, but the sacral center—the Energizer Bunny—isn’t one of them. I physically can’t go and go and go, like a Generator can. I must pay attention to my energy because if I deplete it too much, I’ve emptied the gas tank, and it takes some time to refill.

Before I knew about my Human Design, I beat myself up for being lazy and needing to take naps. I now know that needing to rest is part of my design. It doesn’t make me lazy or undisciplined—or the other hundred derogatory words I’d apply to myself because I didn’t fit the “normal” Generator mode of working.

One of my top Clifton Strengths is Ideation, which means I have a plethora of ideas, and accordingly, would set a multitude of goals. In Human Design, my head center is open, which compounds the number of ideas. Through understanding my Human Design, I can now evaluate those ideas to determine which ones are right for me. Just because they hit my brain doesn’t mean I need to act on them. When we understand how we’re designed to work, achieving our goals becomes less about forcing discipline and more about creating inner alignment that prevents burnout.

Step 3: Break Goals into Small, Sustainable Steps

I break my goals down into small, bite-sized tasks. One of my strengths is seeing the big picture. I can visual all the parts and pieces that need to happen to complete a project. But this can also throw me into overwhelm, with too many tasks and sub-tasks to do. A tool that helps me both capture the big picture and only focus on the task at hand is Notion, a database app. I can break a huge project into smaller pieces or sub-projects and then chunk these down to individual tasks. This allows me to see the full project, what sub-projects I’ve completed, and what still needs to be done, and not slide into overwhelm.

I’ve used this system for various areas in my business, and in my personal life. It helps me track the writing and production of my books (both fantasy and nonfiction), my marketing plan, new projects, my fitness goals, and even my spiritual goals. This system works for me and my strengths and personality. I’ve tried all sorts of different things, such as spreadsheets, planners, and other project management programs. You might need to experiment until you find the one that works for you to chunk down your goals into smaller, more manageable pieces.

Step 4: Celebrate Progress Without Perfection

I now celebrate and acknowledge the steps I’m taking toward achieving my goal. The Notion database helps me do this. I take time to celebrate when I complete a task and check it off (which makes the Achiever in me very happy). This may be as small as: “Whoo-hoo! That one is done!” I don’t often do big celebrations or give myself a treat, like going out to dinner or buying myself something. I used to think something was wrong with me because my celebrations are, “Yay, done… Next.” But I’ve learned this is part of how my Achiever in Clifton Strengths works, and my high Input strength. I’m always looking forward to the next thing on my list.

A downside of this is I don’t always recognize how much I’ve actually accomplished. My to-do list and my goals are always growing. My database lets me see what I’ve accomplished, and so does journaling. I can look back over both, and I’m often surprised how far I’ve gone to achieve my goals. I no longer beat myself up for not meeting my goals or believe that I can’t, because I now have tools to show that I do, in fact, meet most of them. Many times it just isn’t within the time frame my ego wanted.

Step 5: Build Support That Keeps You Aligned

I have a couple of friends who keep me accountable and support me. They ask me about my progress and where I am in achieving my goals. When I haven’t made as much progress as I promised, they hold me accountable and make me explain why. I also feel bad about disappointing them and not living up to my promise, which is out of integrity for me. It helps me make sure I get done what I said I would. 

Plus, they help me celebrate my little accomplishments as well as achieving my big goals. Having someone to celebrate with, and be accountable to, can make the process of setting and achieving your goals and dreams easier. Not to mention, more fun.

My friends help me see where I’m being unrealistic. They encourage me that I’m worth it and that my dreams and goals are worth achieving. And they help me reign in my enthusiasm (Gate 16 in Human Design) when it gets the better of me and I try doing more than humanly possible. One of my friends, Dana, is a Human Design expert, and helps me see when I’m living according to my design or when I’m out of alignment. My friends encourage me when I feel like I’m spinning wheels and not getting anywhere, and they celebrate my successes with me. This helps me to keep going, keep trying, and keep moving forward in achieving my goals and dreams. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them.

Seen together, these five steps offer a compassionate framework for achieving goals without burnout—by working with yourself instead of against yourself.

Get an accountability buddy, coach, or even a good friend to keep you on track and to celebrate with you.

Achieving your goals doesn’t require forcing yourself to become someone you’re not—or burning yourself out in the process.

It asks something far more subtle—and far more powerful: that you learn to work with yourself instead of against yourself.

These five steps didn’t magically remove obstacles from my life, nor did they turn me into someone who never misses a deadline.

What they did was help me build trust with myself. They taught me that progress doesn’t have to be punishing, and that rest, reflection, and support are not signs of failure—but parts of the path.

You’re allowed to adjust your goals. You’re allowed to move more slowly than your ego would like. You’re even allowed to let a goal go if you realize it no longer belongs to you.

Goals, like we do, change and evolve. What matters isn’t perfection, but presence—staying in relationship with yourself as you move forward.

The only thing you don’t need to do is abandon yourself in the process.

(Don’t know your Human Design? Click here to get your free bodygraph!)

1. When I think about the goals I haven’t met, what stories do I tell myself about who I am Where do those stories come from? What would change if I approached them with compassion instead of judgment?

2. Is there a goal in my life that feels overwhelming or impossible right now? If I stopped focusing on the entire outcome, what is the smallest, most supportive step I could take next?

3. Is there a goal I’m holding onto out of obligation, guilt, or expectation rather than true alignment? What permission do I need to give myself right now—whether to continue, adjust, rest, or let it go?