Let me guess: You’ve set the same goals three years in a row. Maybe it’s hitting six figures, maybe it’s working less than 25 hours a week. Maybe it’s finally launching that offer you’ve been thinking about forever. And every December, you find yourself disappointed, wondering why it didn’t happen again.
Here’s the truth nobody wants to hear: Your goals aren’t failing because you lack motivation or discipline. They’re failing because the math doesn’t math. And until you get honest about your capacity, your effort, and what’s actually feasible, you’re going to keep spinning your wheels.
As we head into 2026, I want you to approach goal setting differently. Not with blind optimism or vague intentions, but with clear-eyed strategy that accounts for real life. Because when you set goals you can actually hit, everything changes—including how much you trust yourself.
The Math Doesn’t Math
This is the first issue I see with goal setting, and it’s a big one.
Anybody can say “I want to hit six figures next year and work 20 hours a week.” That’s easy. What’s harder is looking at your actual business and asking: Does my offer support that? Does the time I have available support that? Does my life support that?
Let’s walk through a real example. Six figures in 2026 is about $9,000 a month. Great. Now look at your offers. Can you take on the amount of clients that equals $9,000? If yes, wonderful. Now think about the systems needed, the team needed, the time needed. Can you realistically do it?
But here’s where people stop thinking it through: You might calculate that it takes 25-30 hours a week to work with that many clients. Perfect, right? Wrong. Because you still have behind-the-scenes work. Admin. Internal tasks. And you need 5-10 hours a week for marketing. Suddenly you’re at 35-40 hours when you only wanted to work 20.
This is when you go back and tweak. Maybe your prices need to increase, maybe you need to hire a team member, maybe you need to manage your expectations. Maybe your goal needs to decrease a little bit, or maybe you need quarterly milestones as you build toward something bigger.
These are the details people don’t think about. And then you get in this cycle where you set goals, don’t hit those goals, and they stop meaning anything. You stop trusting yourself. And don’t underestimate how detrimental that is—to say you’re going to do something and then not do it, over and over again.
I’d much rather you set goals you can actually hit. Yes, they can be stretchy. It’s fine to look at the math and think “I’m not quite sure how that’s gonna happen, but I trust myself to figure it out.” There’s room for variables like hiring someone or raising your prices. But it shouldn’t be so stretchy that your belief isn’t behind it, or it’s not physically possible to do. Because then why even make the goal?
You’re Not Setting Effort-Based Goals
It’s fine to set monetary goals and time goals. There’s nothing wrong with that. But you need to look at the effort goals around them.
How much effort do you actually need to put in to make that possible?
You can’t just snap your fingers and make $10,000 a month happen. There has to be significant effort on the back end, and you need to be intentional about what sort of effort is required. This depends entirely on your business model.
If you have a membership where you need 100 members to hit $10,000 a month, and you only have 15 right now, the amount of time you’ll spend on marketing is going to be exponential. That visibility piece is crucial to continually bring in members.
If you offer larger retainers at $2,000 a month, you need five clients. You only have two. You can’t even imagine managing three more by yourself right now. So you need to hire somebody. But then you’re not making the full amount because you’re paying team—so really you need six clients. Which means you could handle one or two more on your own while still marketing, then hire somebody, and build from there.
See how this works? You’re looking at a gradual goal with quarterly milestones, not a snap-your-fingers transformation.
Think through all these details. Think about the marketing effort specifically, because so many of our goals are around money and decreasing our time. You may have to understand that for the first three to six months of the year, you’re working double the amount of time you want to be working in order to get where you want to be. Maybe your goal is “by October 2026, I want to be working 20 hours a week and making $10K.”
If the effort you need to put in means doing two to three hours of marketing every single day—recording two podcasts a week, showing up on TikTok, learning Facebook ads—then you need to account for that time. Be realistic about what that effort is going to take.
Manage Your Expectations
Here’s what you can control: your effort, your attitude, and your gratitude. That’s pretty much it.
You can control the effort you put in. But if the effort you need to put in is hindered by time constraints, then you’ve got to look at what you can shift around. And if you can’t shift anything around, you need to manage your expectations.
This isn’t about lowering your standards or thinking small. It’s about being strategic so you actually hit your targets instead of disappointing yourself year after year.
Sometimes we tell ourselves something isn’t possible because of X, Y, and Z. And that’s just a story we’ve told ourselves. “I can’t work with that client.” “I can’t hire this person until…” Check yourself on the things you’re telling yourself aren’t possible. But also check yourself on the things you’re pretending are possible when the math clearly doesn’t support it.
Your Next Step
I want you to make goals in 2026 that you can actually hit. Goals that make you stretch a little but don’t require you to become a completely different person overnight. Goals that account for your real life, your real capacity, and your real business model.
I’ll be hosting my free Vision and Goal Setting Workshop in January (date TBA—stay tuned). We’ll go deep into the tangibles and the planning so you can map this out properly. But for now, start thinking about your goals in relation to your capacity.
You have more control than you think when it comes to getting what you want in your life and business. But it doesn’t happen automatically. It doesn’t happen with a snap of your fingers. You have to look at things honestly and figure out what’s feasible, where you can stretch, and where you need to get uncomfortable.
Join Grow Business and Marketing Membership where you’ll get the frameworks, group coaching, and daily support to make it happen. No more guessing. No more spinning your wheels. Just real strategy and real results.
