February 3, 2025 • 47 mins
Have you ever felt hopeless, helpless, or disillusioned about goal-setting, or found yourself asking, "Why bother?" This week, we're looking at what happens to make us feel that way, and how to set our writing lives on the path to success going forward.
For show notes and a full transcript of this episode, please visit: https://www.sarahwerner.com/cynicism-about-goals-wn-163/
Thank you for listening! To support the work I do here at the Write Now podcast, you can become a patron on Patreon at https://patreon.com/sarahrheawerner, or send me a tip on Ko-Fi at https://ko-fi.com/sarahwerner.
Happy writing!
— Sarah
©2025 by Write Now, LLC. All rights reserved.
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(00:00):
This is the Write Now podcastwith Sarah Werner, Episode 163:
Cynicism About Goals.
(00:28):
Welcome to Write Now, the podcastthat helps all writers - aspiring,
professional, and otherwise- to find the time, energy,
and courage you need to pursueyour passion and write. I'm
your host, Sarah Werner, and I'm feelinga little under the weather today,
so I might be a little lowenergy for today's episode.
But I wanted to recordtoday because today is
(00:52):
January 13th, 2025.
Today is the 10th anniversary,the 10-year anniversary,
of when I first launched the firstepisode of the Write Now Podcast.
So this podcast is nowofficially 10 years old.
10 years! I know that continually saying,
(01:13):
"10 years!" over and over again is notgoing to make it feel any more real
or rational or logical orwhat have you, but wow,
for anyone who has been listening forall 10 years of the existence of this
podcast - which, yes,
has been slightly off and on at times- but if you've been listening since
(01:36):
2015, thank you.
I am so honored to be onthis journey with you. Holy
cow, 10 years. Over those 10 years,
I have changed a lot,
and you have also probably changed a lot.
That is if you're doing somethingright, you've learned, you've grown,
(01:57):
you've tried new things, you've maybegrown in your skill as a writer.
You've maybe put somework into your craft.
You can maybe see a difference now betweenthe writer you are now and the writer
you were - not even 10 years ago - thewriter that you were seven years ago,
the writer that you werefive years ago; heck,
even the writer you were last year.There is a meme that has stuck
(02:21):
very clearly with me over theyears, and it's a picture of a...
I think it's a husky (I don't have it infront of me now because that would make
too much sense).
It's a picture of a husky wearing aboat's high and little eyeglasses,
and he's just sitting like a verygood boy in front of a whiteboard,
and on the whiteboard it says,
(02:42):
"If you ever find yourself cringingat something you did in the past,
it means you have grown as aperson." I wanted to share that with
you because I'm pretty sure if I wentback and listened to some of those
original episodes of the Write Nowpodcast, I would cringe pretty hard.
I didn't know what I was doing.
I was starting the podcastfrom absolutely nothing.
(03:06):
I was figuring it out as I went.So of course, 10 years ago,
there's going to be some cringe-worthymoments. And maybe you've experienced
something like this in your writing,or in other creative projects.
You look back at maybe some poemsthat you wrote in high school,
or a novel that you wrote duringNaNoWriMo a couple of years ago,
(03:26):
or maybe even somethingyou wrote two days ago,
and you look at it and you're like,"Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing.
This is the most cringe pieceof poetry / literature / et
cetera that has ever existed.Why did I think this was okay,
or even good or cool at the time?" Well,
(03:48):
the answer is becauseyou're still learning.
You didn't know 10 years ago ortwo days ago what you know today.
That's a good sign.
If there is a huge difference betweenyour writing or even who you are as a
person from several years agoand the person you are today,
that's growth.I know some people throw away or burn
(04:10):
their old stuff that embarrasses them.
I know other people who starteda podcast the same time I did
and have gotten rid of all of their earlyepisodes because they're embarrassing,
or they feel they're embarrassing.
I know other people who have publishedfictional shows and pulled them from
(04:30):
their podcast feeds and remasteredthem and then rereleased them because
again,
they know better now than theydid back then. I'm not going to
pull any of my Write Now podcast episodes.
You can still go back 10years in the podcast feed and
listen to my very first episodeof the Write Now Podcast,
(04:52):
when I didn't know how to level my micand I didn't know all of that other
stuff I have learnedin the 10 years since.
They'll still be available out therejust because I like the idea of
chronicling my own growth. Ilike the idea of saying, "Yeah,
10 years ago I thoughtX, Y, and Z, ha ha ha.
(05:13):
Wasn't that silly of me?" So whateveryou choose to do with your old
cringey, embarrassing writinga I want you to remember,
it actually might not be that bad. Youmight just be your own worst critic.
You might just be a very harsh judgeof the person that you used to be,
and I feel like that's normal.I get angry at the me I
(05:35):
remember from 10 years ago.Why did you make that decision?
Why didn't you know better? Whydidn't you act more responsibly?
Why didn't you say this instead of that?
I think it's important for us to rememberwhere we came from, how we've grown.
I think that even if we've grown intosome really smart, cool, talented people,
(05:55):
it's humbling in a way to rememberthat we were like that once.
So... I don't know. If youwant to burn your old poetry,
burn your old poetry - just do it safely.
But I don't know,
it might be something that you'llfind you enjoy looking back on in
10 years, in 20 years,
(06:15):
as you sort of take a look overallat the person you were and the
person you've become. I have alot of my old poems handwritten in
a little journal from second and thirdgrade - so here in the United States,
that's when I'm... how old are you?Eight, nine years old? 7, 8, 9?
- and I don't go back and read it,
(06:36):
but I have it because it'spart of me. And again,
maybe you're not that nostalgic.
And this is not a plea for you tokeep everything you've ever written.
I have thrown away a lot - I've thrownaway a lot of what I've written over the
years. I've inadvertentlylost or destroyed what I've written over the years.
I've had computers crash,I've had hard drives wiped.
(06:57):
It's a thing that we deal with.The other thing I wanted to bring up
is that today in 2025,
I feel very grateful that Istarted this podcast in 2015.
When I started the WriteNow podcast back in 2015,
I almost felt like it wastoo late for me to start it,
that everybody had a podcast at that time,
(07:18):
that no one would care what I had to say.
But those ended up not being issues.I am so grateful today that I
have a - off-and-on,
because if I produced andpublished a podcast episode
every week like I initially intended,
there would be a lot morethan 163 episodes - but I
(07:40):
digress.
I was saying how grateful Iwas that I decided to start and
record and publish my first episodeof the Write Now Podcast 10 years ago,
because it has existed for 10years. If I would've put it off,
if I had let my doubts get the bestof me and not started it at all,
my life would be radically different.
(08:02):
Starting this podcast - thisis going to sound cheesy,
but - starting this podcast completelychanged the trajectory of my life in the
best way. It turns out,when you make stuff,
and you make that stuff with theintention of connecting with and uplifting
other people,
it comes back to you in a beautiful way.And B - this is going to
(08:23):
sound obvious, but if I hadn'tstarted this podcast in 2015,
I would not be able to sit here in2025 and be proud of the fact that
I have a podcast that's 10 years old.
This podcast might actually be older thansome of my listeners (and shout out to
you out there - you're awesome!).
(08:44):
I'm saying this becauseI'm reminded of a saying,
and I know I've said iton this podcast before,
but I'm going to say it again becauseI think it's really important:
"The best time to planta tree was 20 years ago.
The second best time is now."So...
those of you who have beendreaming of starting a project,
(09:07):
those of you who have been doodlingand outlining and sort of hedging your
way around the project withoutcommitting to starting it,
I encourage you (09:17):
start it. I know it's easier said than done.
I know that even having startedthis podcast 10 years ago,
it is super difficult for metoday when I've had a long
day, when I'm facing depression,
when there's just a lot going on in life,
it's exhausting to sit downand even think about recording.
(09:39):
But I'm always glad that I did it.
I'm always glad that Ichose to start something,
even if it doesn't go anywhere nearaccording to what I had initially
planned.Having kept a show alive for a decade
now feels like I've achievedsome kind of milestone or goal,
(10:00):
and that's really what I wantto talk about with you today.
The second episode of the Write Nowpodcast, the very second episode,
which came out in January, 2015,
was called "Five Steps To MakingYour Writing Goals A Reality."
There are, if you scrollthrough the years of episodes,
a lot of episodes thatdeal with goal-setting,
(10:24):
and that's because withthe way society works,
with the way things workfor us in this life,
setting goals allows us to workwithin a framework that helps us
to name what we want or need and to move
toward getting what we wantor need. We set a goal,
and we work toward achieving that goal.This is taught to us from a very
(10:47):
early age.
Our parents maybe have a goal forus - that they want us to learn to
walk, learn to talk, learnto clean up our rooms.
A lot of these original goals weren'tthings that we necessarily consciously
decided for ourselves.
You don't see a baby consciouslydebating sitting in their high chair,
(11:11):
"Now, do I really wantto learn how to walk?
Is that a worthwhile goal for me,
a baby?" Some goals areplanned out for us and some
are maybe a little inevitable.
Maybe it's inevitable that acertain baby will learn how to walk.
Maybe that's how our bodies develop.
But it's still somethingthat we work toward,
(11:33):
something that other people want for us,
and something that will probably endup being good for us in the long run.
I was thinking about this whenI first started setting goals.
So many goals were sort of... put upon me,
or assigned to me (I don'tknow if that's the right word).
But you go to kindergarten, first grade,
(11:54):
and at the end of the year - ormaybe you don't know this yet,
you will learn by the end of the year- that you will get a report card.
And on that report card willbe a letter grade (or if you
go to some other different type ofschool that doesn't use letter grades,
whatever the equivalent ofthat is). Basically, the report card is going to ask,
(12:15):
"Did you live up to theexpectations that were set for you?"
I felt like theexpectation was to get an A
in a given subject, todo your absolute best.
I wonder now if things have changed.I don't have children of my own,
so I'm not sure how schools are doingthis now, but when I was in school,
(12:38):
I remember there were motivationalposters and signs throughout
each school that I wentto that said stuff like,
"You can do it!" and "Doyour best!" and stuff about
trying and succeeding and,
"Make it a great day or not - thechoice is yours." There was an
(12:59):
emphasis on doing yourabsolute best for everything
in school,
and then doing your absolute bestfor everything outside of school.
If you were on a swim team, abaseball team, basketball team,
you were expected to do your best inpractice and on the field or in the
court or in the pool or whereverit was you did the sport.
(13:23):
Personally, looking back now,
I'm glad that I was encouragedto do my best and to push myself,
because I've carried those traits intoadulthood and they have served me well.
But I wonder (13:34):
did I really need to do my best?
Did I need to live up to that expectation?
I never agreed to that expectation.
I walked into a classroomas a child and immediately,
without me having anything to do with it,
there was an expectation thatSarah would get an A in the class.
(13:58):
Now, along with goals, there areassociated stakes and consequences.
And so, what was at stake ifI didn't get an A? Well...
I would have a dark future or something.
I don't ever think I asked,
"But what if I don't get an A?" Instead,
I threw myself into school andworked super hard to get As,
(14:22):
so maybe at that time what wasat stake for me was whether I
was living up to what my teachersand family expected of me.
Or maybe just, if you don't do this,
people will be disappointed in you- and that is literally the worst,
most incomprehensible thing ever.
And I'm kind of being seriouswhen I say that. Stakes aside,
(14:45):
we all knew that there wereconsequences for not reaching or
meeting the goals that were placed uponus in school. There were consequences.
If you got an F,
you had to put in extra work over thesummer while everyone else got to run
around and play. Some kids I knewalso faced punishment at home.
The consequences for not getting acertain level of grade in a class
(15:10):
was being grounded, havingtheir allowance taken away,
et cetera.I suppose in a way, too,
this is training for eventually when yougraduate and step into the job market.
Your employer will expect thevery best of you every day.
Your boss, figuratively speaking, expectsyou to get an "A" in their "class".
(15:32):
If you do well, you might getrewarded, you might get a raise,
you might get promoted,you might get a bonus.
And if you don't live up tothose expectations... well,
you're going to get a trip to HR oryou're going to get demoted or you're
just straight up going to get fired.Now,
perhaps it is with enormousirony that I tell you:
(15:55):
when it got to setting personal goals,
the place that I learned todo that was the workplace.
My first couple of jobs were not the
personal-growth-investedtype of employment.
I was doing data entry, I wasdoing entry level marketing,
nothing that ever really inspired myemployer to invest anything more than
(16:18):
minimum wage in me.
But as I continued in my career andI grew more focused and I grew more
talented,
employers started to talk aboutquarterly goals and annual goals
and, "Where do you seeyourself in five years,
Sarah?"I always hated this.
I hated this line of questioning for,well, I guess a number of reasons.
(16:41):
But first and foremost,
I did not like this type of questioningbecause it was not something I had ever
been asked before, and Ididn't know how to answer it.
My knee-jerk reaction was to say,"Well, what do you want me to want?
What am I supposed to want?
Are you trying to ask me if I want tobe a senior vice president for this
company in five years?"Basically,
(17:03):
this goal-setting exercisewas a way that we could set
expectations for ourselves within theworkplace so that our employer would know:
"What kind of worker are you? Doyou want a leadership position?
Are you interested in being a manager?
Are you someone that we shouldfeel justified investing in?
Do we want to keep you around? Whatvalue will you, employee Sarah,
(17:27):
provide to us,
the corporation?" And since you arethe one who is ostensibly setting these
goals, it's implicit thatyou agree with them. Now,
as the workplace changed - becausejust as you and I have changed over the
last 10, 20, maybe more than that, years,
society has changed,
(17:47):
too - and I noticed inthe early 2010s that
employers were less interested in,
"What can you do to make ourcorporate machine thrive?" and
sort of pivoting toward asking,
"How can we as a company help youachieve the career that you want?"
(18:09):
It was not a subtleshift, but it was gradual,
so it happened kind of slowly,and I watched with great interest.
Because when I was in mytwenties, early thirties,
working for a small marketing company,
the fact that they askedme not only, "Sarah,
where do you see yourself in thiscompany in five years," but also, "Sarah,
(18:32):
what do you want for yourself overthe next five years?" Both of those
questions were on our yearly review, andthere were some other questions, too,
and there were quarterly goals andcheck-ins and all of that stuff.
But I remember that was the firstjob where I was really asked,
"What do you want for yourself?" Not,
(18:52):
"What do you think thecompany wants for you?" but,
"What do you want for yourself?"Now,
this is where I might startto get a little cynical,
because I think that in asking, "Sarah,
in addition to what youwant to do for the company,
what do you want for yourself?
What are your personal goals?" they werereally sort of trying to feel around
additionally to what kind of worker I was.
(19:15):
They didn't care that it was mygoal to read 52 books in a year.
They didn't care that it was my goalto start a writer's group downtown.
What they did care was thatSarah wants to start a podcast.
Sarah wants to start freelancing.
Sarah wants to start a business.
(19:35):
It felt really cool at the time thatmy employer was interested in my own
personal goals,
and maybe to some degree they were - Iworked with some really great people.
But I can't help but be a little bitcynical now that more expectations were
simply being placed upon me,
and - for me - it was alwaysso hard to articulate what
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I wanted because it was not somethingthat I - and perhaps you - had ever been
trained to ask.I have friends today - multiple people who
are in their fifties, sixties - who say,
"I really still don't know what I wantfrom life." My answer is, of course,
"Hey, do you want to write a book?
Because I can help you with that."But until I entered this particular
(20:21):
job, I had never been encouragedto set goals for myself,
to set personal goals,to clearly establish,
"I want or need this thing in my life,
and I will take the following stepsto attain it." I think a lot of us are
still on autopilot.
I think a lot of us are still runningon not our own personal goals,
(20:42):
but the expectations that have beenset upon us by society or by our
parents or by our schoolor by our employer.
And I'm not going to say that's a goodthing or a bad thing - that's just how we
work. And I didn't know toquestion it at the time,
because when you're younger, youdon't know things you don't know,
(21:03):
and no one can blame youfor that. I didn't know that some of the personal goals
I was setting were perceivedby the company as good,
and others were essentiallya red flag. Again,
I've spoken on this podcastbefore about how I was taken
aside at work after startingthe Write Now podcast,
(21:23):
after I got really into it andstarted printing mugs and t-shirts
(and when I get into something,I really get into it).
So I was really obsessedwith creating this podcast,
and my employer took me asideand gave me a talking to
about how, "Sarah, we lovethat you have a new hobby,
(21:45):
but we need you to bemore outwardly focused.
We need you to appear as thoughyou are just as excited to work
here at this company as you areabout producing your own podcast.
So we're going to need you to toneit down or perhaps stop the podcast."
I didn't know this at the time,
(22:06):
but my starting a creative ventureand getting really stoked about it
was a red flag to my employer,
who knew that they were perhaps notgetting my best energy - that I was
saving my best creative energyfor my own project at home,
and not using it to write ads andblog posts for clients at work.
(22:26):
Whether that's true or not, Ican't say. I was naive and excited,
and I just wanted to dothe things that lit me up.
On the more positive side of things,
they were really aggressive about gettingus to meet both corporate and personal
goals. They held us accountable.
So if you said you wanted to read52 books in a year, gosh darn it,
(22:48):
they were going to push youto read 52 books that year.
And if you didn't do it, there wouldactually be a serious conversation about,
"What got in your way? Whydidn't you achieve your goal?
Was 52 books too manybooks for you to read,
given the balance and structure of yourlife?" So I'm grateful that I learned
how to set goals and reach them. It was,
(23:12):
perhaps ironically,
very useful when I leftmy job and started my own
business. I needed seven differentincome streams? Okay, that was my goal.
I got seven different income streams.
I need to make this amount ofmoney in order to survive? Okay,
I'm going to figure out a way tomake this amount of money to survive.
(23:32):
Goal-setting became everything to me.
"It's my goal to travel to this placeand speak at this conference because
whatever reason." "It's mygoal to publish this thing here
for this reason." Goal-settingbecame the way that I lived my
life,
and I started to think of myself interms of a very binary success or
(23:55):
failure. Did I achieve thisgoal? If the answer was no,
I failed to achieve that goal,
there started to become thisinternalized message of,
"I failed to reach this goal;
I AM a failure." Similarly,if I reached a goal,
that was success, and I wouldfeel good and I would say,
"I AM a success!" And I beganto conflate my self-worth
(24:19):
with the outcomes of the goals thatI was setting. Maybe this is not
something that you dealwith or worry about,
but I promise I amgoing somewhere with it.
Regardless of whether ornot you identify with that,
I've been self-employed and runningmy own business for many years now,
and every year my husband Tim and I sitdown and look at what we want out of
(24:44):
the year ahead. We have a goal settingsession for our business. So...
we want to make this amount of money,
we want to do that bydoing this, this, and this,
we want to release thiscreative project by this
date, et cetera.And I have to tell you,
I sat down to do that thisyear - just a week ago,
(25:07):
actually - and I found myselffeeling really cynical about goal
setting.
And I think a lot of this wasbecause I looked back at 2022 - my
goal in 2022 was to finish writingseason two of Girl In Space.
And then I looked at 2023, and sinceI didn't complete this goal in 2022,
(25:27):
my goal in 2023 was to finishwriting season two of Girl In Space.
Then, when that didn't happen, in 2024,
my goal was to finish writing seasontwo of Girl In Space. And then...
that didn't happen.And I get so caught up in reasons
versus excuses, and asking myself,
(25:49):
Why didn't I achieve this goal?I've had it for so many years.
Am I not doing somethingcorrectly? Am I failing?
Am I a failure?
Am I a failure multiple times over?
Am I a 2022,
2023 and 2024 failure?
And since I've failed toaccomplish this goal for so long,
(26:13):
can I reasonably expect thatI can achieve it in 2025?"
If I was a younger, moreenergetic version of myself,
I would get out my journal and I wouldstart analyzing from previous journals:
"What happened? Why didn't Iproduce more? What was going on?
And are these reasonsor are these excuses?
(26:34):
Why am I not living up to these goals?
Why am I not living up to theseexpectations I have of myself?
Why am I failing? What's the disconnect?
What's going on there?" But it'sbeen an exhausting couple of years,
and I'm not the energetic youngperson that I was years ago.
(26:55):
I'm tired and burned outand beginning to wonder:
have I simply let myselfdown one too many times?
Have I betrayed myself and mypromises to myself one too many
times, or two too many times, et cetera?
Do I no longer believe in myself?
(27:16):
Do I no longer believe thatthis is something I can do,
because I've proved to myself over thelast few years that this is not something
that I can do? And this littlevoice began to ask, "Why bother?
Why set yourself up for something that'sjust going to disappoint you all over
again? Why bother setting goalsthat you're not going to achieve?
(27:38):
You've shown us - whoever we are,
these voices in your head - you've shownus year over year that you can't do
this, and isn't it foolish to set goals,
to set your heart on something,
to set stakes for something thatyou've proven before you can't
achieve?" And I found myselffeeling a little cynical about
(27:59):
even the process of goalsetting itself, like,
"Why do we do this toourselves?" I asked myself.
"Why do we build up these hugedreams and hopes year over
year, fail to achieve them,
and then spiral into feelingworthless or disliking
yourself or hating yourself?"I was reminded that I
(28:23):
was encouraged to set all of these goalsat the workplace because it benefited
the workplace. I remembered anothergoal-setting experience that hadn't
sat well with me.
I was at a conference where a lot ofambitious goal-setting was taking place,
and the person leading the conferencewas leading us through a goal-setting
(28:43):
exercise for our work, for ourprojects, for our creative endeavors,
for our personal business.And this person said, "Okay,
write down how much moneyyou would like to make in...
whatever year was coming up." And Iremember, I sat there, and I was like,
"Well, how reasonableshould I be with this?
We're talking about how much moneydo I want to make; it's like, well,
(29:05):
why would I cut myself off?
Why would I set an upper limit?"Not that I'm a greedy person.
I was just very curious, forthe purposes of this exercise,
what they thought was possible andwhat they were trying to get at.
And the person leading thisworkshop basically said, "Well,
write down as much as you want it tobe." And I felt myself pushing back,
(29:28):
and I said, "Okay, right,
but I don't have a limitedamount of time and energy.
What can I expect ballpark-wise thatwould be reasonable?" And it ended up,
the sort of point of this exercisewas to have you write down a number,
an amount of money you wantedto make in the upcoming year,
and look at it and internalizeit in a way that you would
(29:50):
manifest that amountof money in your work.
And so I wrote down $1 million justfor the heck of it, and I said,
"Okay, I want to make $1 million in...
whatever year it was."And they said, "Great.
Now what kind of stakes areyou going to set for yourself?
What's going to happen if you don'tmake $1 million in the upcoming year?"
(30:12):
And I was like, "I don't know! I'mnot exactly married to this number.
I don't seriously think I can make amillion dollars in a year." And they said,
"Well, that sounds like limited thinkingto me." And I found myself thinking,
all this is going to dois set me up for failure.
Establishing a million-dollarnet revenue in the upcoming year
(30:35):
isn't feasible with whatI have to work with.
I would just be setting myself upto be disappointed with myself,
to hate myself,
by the end of next year. And I realizedlater that there's a difference
between setting a goal and making a wish.
And my feelings of cynicism about goalsdeepened a little bit because I thought,
(30:57):
"Why are they encouraging usto set unreasonable goals?
What is the purpose behind this?"And I realized that they were
setting themselves up to bethe good guys. Like, "Oh,
we encouraged you to set biggoals. We encouraged you to dream.
It's not our fault if you didn't liveup to those goals - you set them.
(31:17):
It's not our fault that you didn'treach them." These were wishes with
stakes attached.
We were setting ourselves up forsomething we weren't going to get,
and we were also setting ourselves up tobe the bad guy when we didn't get them.
And I started feeling reallycynical about goals in general.
(31:37):
Why do we bother? Why are we doing this?
What if I just went out into this comingyear with no goals? What if I just...
existed? What if I just said, "Screw it,
I'm just going to get upevery day like I do and write,
and not reach toward anything.
What's wrong with that?"But that felt wrong, too,
(32:00):
because I recognize the onlyway I've ever gotten anything
accomplished was by setting a goal.
Back in 2017,
I set a goal that I was going toleave my job and work for myself.
In 2014,
I had a goal that I wanted to make apodcast about writing that I would launch
(32:20):
in January, 2015. Way back in school,
whether I set this goal for myself ornot, I had a goal to get straight As,
and I was going to do thatby doing all of my homework,
paying attention in class,
getting As on tests - there was aroadmap to follow. There were steps.
And I wasn't just throwing myselfat a target that was a million miles
(32:43):
away and hoping that I would hit it,
because that's a wish.A goal without a plan, without a roadmap,
is just a wish. Maybe that should havebeen enough to pull me out of my cynicism
and despair. But withwhere I was at the time,
I was feeling cynical andangry and hopeless and
helpless. So I reached outto a friend, a friend who,
(33:06):
like me, is in business for themselves,
and who I knew had been dealing witha lot of their own exhaustion and
cynicism and weariness andhopelessness about not only
their own goals and their work,but the state of the world.
They also have a chronic illness.
And I just needed to talkto somebody who understood.
(33:30):
And I said, "Jen, what am I doing?
What are any of us doing?"And I went into it.
I told her I had set a goal to finishGirl In Space season two in 2022.
And then when I failed to dothat, it was my goal in 2023,
and then my goal in 2024,and now it was 2025,
(33:51):
et cetera, et cetera. I toldher, "I have failed for...
what, four years now to do this?
What makes 2025 any different?"And she said, "Back up - Sarah,
do you really believe that youare a failure?" And in my heart,
I said, "Yes,"
(34:11):
but I knew that that would lead to avery uncomfortable conversation with Jen.
And so I said, "No, of coursenot. I'm not a failure,
but I feel like I have failedcontinuously at doing things that I
wanted to do, and felt it waspossible for me to do." And I said,
"Perhaps these feelings of havingfailed myself and my expectations have
(34:33):
led to me feeling like a failure."And I wanted her to know, like,
I am not a failure as a person,because that would just be silly.
I'm a human being. Ibreathe. I sleep. I eat.
I'm functional as a human being.I'm not a failure as a human being.
But I am a failure at someof these other things.
(34:55):
And she said, "Okay, I getthat. I've been through that.
A lot of people have beenthrough that. But Sarah,
what if you haven't evenfailed at this project?
What if there's somethingelse going on here?
What if there's severalthings going on here?
What if you set an unreasonablegoal for yourself? And also,
(35:16):
what if some other things happenedalong the way?" If you're anything like
me,
it is very easy for you to focus onyour failures and your shortcomings,
and to completely forget andignore the wins and the good
things you do. I'm not a psychologist,
so I can't say why we do something likethat - I think it has something to do
(35:37):
with the negativity bias,
which has us focus on the negativesand the mistakes we make so that we can
continue to learn and evolve. And shesaid, "Okay, back up. What did you do?
What were you able to do on your wayto NOT meeting this goal last year?
What got in the way?
Write down everything that got in theway." And this is the kind of friend
where, when we meet over coffee,
(35:59):
we both bring our journalsbecause we learn from each other.
And so I sat there whileJen sipped her coffee,
and I wrote down things- things that I had
done and ignored or forgotten- and I filled up a whole page.
I didn't finish season two of GirlIn Space in 2022 because I wrote a
(36:21):
book - I wrote 135,000 word book.
I was producing other projects. Idon't know if you've heard it yet,
but I am the executive producerfor Omen, a Fantasy Audio Drama,
which is helmed by my husbandand creative partner, Tim,
which I can link to in theshow notes for this episode.
(I think it's a very good show,
but maybe I'm biased.) I did somefreelance projects here and there.
(36:44):
I do marketing consulting. I buildwebsites. I do some writing coaching.
I spoke at this conference andthat conference. And honestly,
if you go back to episode158 of the Write Now podcast,
I am admittedly a slow writer,
which is less a matter of typingslowly and more, a matter of it,
taking a long time forthoughts and ideas and story to
(37:08):
coalesce in my brain.And I showed this list to Jen,
and she said,
"Does any of this indicate to you thatyou are a failure?" And I said, "Well,
no. BUT, I still feel like one.
I should have been done writingGirl In Space season two,
back in 2022,
2023 at the most."I can't remember if I've talked
(37:31):
about this on the WriteNow podcast or not,
but I have a long history with theword "should." I also have some very
lovely and generous people inmy life who call me out when I
use the word "should." Andshe said, "Okay, Sarah,
you feel like you 'should' have beendone with this season the past year,
the year before that... Whoestablished that 'should'?" And I said,
(37:55):
"Well, I did. I feel like everyoneelse writes a lot faster than I do.
Their brains work better.
It was a 'should' because that wasmy goal." And she asked the question
that I think I had beenhiding from for actual years.
Given my circumstances,my energy, my brain,
(38:16):
the way I work - was finishingseason two of Girl In Space
by a certain deadline- was that a real goal,
or was it a wish?
Was it something that was reasonableor unreasonable of me to expect of
myself? And that was thedissonance. That was the disconnect.
(38:37):
I very conveniently... well,
"forgot" is maybe not theright word - "ignored".
I very conveniently ignored severalthings that I had learned to be true about
myself over the years. And justlike at that business conference,
I wrote down a million dollars withouta plan on how I was going to get there.
I just sat down every dayand wrote as much as I could.
(39:00):
But if I backed it up and I looked atthe number of words I was writing per day
with all the other things goingon with my life circumstances...
if I was honest about that,
I would've realized a lot earlierthat I had set an unreasonable goal
that I had instead made a wish.
And by not supernaturallymaking that wish come true,
(39:21):
I had grown cynical about goal-setting.And so I said, "Ah, Jen,
I DID fail at setting a reasonablegoal." And she said, "Okay, in the past,
maybe, yeah - but now whatare you going to do about it?
How are you going to moveforward?" And I realized,
as angry at myself as Iwas for having worked so
(39:43):
hard toward an unreasonable goal,
I wasn't going to spend the upcomingyear sitting in a corner and crying about
it.
Not that there's anything wrong withcrying - I could sit in the corner and cry
for a little bit, feel myfeelings, take a deep breath,
and then get up and do something about it.So after my coffee with
Jen, I went home and,
(40:03):
despite not having the energyand chutzpah that I had in years
past, I sat down and I did this (40:08):
I opened my journal and I said, "Okay,
how do I set a reasonablegoal?" And with so many other
things in writing and in life,
I had to learn how to doit all over again. The
exercise became (40:25):
start with what you want, and work backward from there,
staying flexible and rememberingthat life gets in the way sometimes.
Given all of that, whatcan I reasonably achieve?
How can I do my best and evenpush myself without my goal
turning into an impossiblewish? What is the balance there?
(40:48):
At what point can you strive and improve,
but also at what point do youneed to simply accept? I had
to accept that I could not sitdown and reliably churn out
4,000 words a day, everyday, 365 days a year.
I've tried to do that and failedmiserably, because it's not - for me,
(41:10):
at least - a reasonable goal.
I can write 4,000 words in a good dayif I don't have any interruptions,
if my brain is cooperating with me.
But I can't sustainably do thatevery day with no break. So:
start with where you want to be.Write that down. Work backward,
keeping your responsibilitiesand personal limitations in mind.
(41:34):
Stay flexible.
And then work forward again and adjustyour goal from there. There are some
circumstances in our lives thatwe can work toward improving,
that we can work toward changing.
But there are other realitiesthat I think we have to accept,
and we have to build intoour goal-setting process.
And I'm still working on this myself- I'm not good at this yet. But...
(41:56):
if you have kids to takecare of in your life,
you have to factor thatinto your writing goals.
You can't just "Hansel and Gretel" them- you can't send them into the woods
to fend for themselves whileyou write your masterpiece.
So how do I create a goal that honorsthat limitation of my time and energy,
(42:16):
while also honoring my ambitionsof what I truly want to achieve?
What does that balance look like?And if you, like me,
were or are experiencingsome cynicism or hopelessness
about your own writing goals, I wantyou to know that you're not alone.
There's a lot wrapped up in thegoals that we set for ourselves,
(42:38):
our capability, our capacity,our ambitions, our hopes,
our dreams, our expectations of ourselves,
our self-worth,
stated or unstated expectationsthat others may have of us,
and a whole boatload of 'should's.But we need to be really careful
in our discernment, in our distinctionbetween understanding that,
(43:01):
what we've set for ourself:
is it a reasonable goalor is it simply a wish?
And if it is a wish oran unreasonable goal,
what can we do to shift thatinto something that is reasonable
and doable?Because there is a difference,
an enormous difference betweenpushing yourself to pursue a goal and
(43:23):
burning yourself out,chasing after a wish.
So looking back on whatwe've talked about today,
those goals that you found yourselfreaching toward and that maybe you found
yourself feeling a little cynicalabout... Who set that goal?
Who set that expectationfor you? Did you set that?
Did someone else set it for you?
(43:45):
Did you agree to have that set for you?
Did you understand when you weresetting that goal that it needed to be
realistic, that you needed a plan toget there? (It's okay if you didn't,
because I just spent the last however-manyyears chasing an unreasonable goal.)
With that goal, what steps do you needto get there, and what is at stake?
(44:05):
Are there any consequences along the way?
Are you setting yourself up for success,or are you setting yourself up for
failure? I know this episodehas gone on a little longer than
normal episodes, but I feel likethere was a lot to talk about here.
I would love to hear your ownexperience with goal-setting,
(44:27):
goal-reaching, wish-setting,anything along those lines.
Your experience is valid and valuable,
and I would love to hearwhat you have to say.
You can get in touch with me by leavinga comment on the show notes for today's
episode - this is episode number 163- and you can find those show notes
(44:47):
either right here in yourpodcatcher or out on my
website at sarahwerner dot com (that's
S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-Rdot com) and navigating
to this episode, episode 163,
scrolling down to the bottom ofthat page, and submitting a comment.
I do read and try to respond to everysingle comment I get on the website.
(45:10):
So yeah,
I look forward to hearing from you.I would not be able to make this
podcast the way that I do andpay for hosting, et cetera,
if it were not for the generous,beautiful donations of people on Patreon.
Patreon is a secure third-party donationplatform that allows you to give $1 per
episode, $2 per episode,whatever you wish,
(45:33):
to help produce and distributethis podcast. Specifically,
I would like to thankLaurie, Regina Calabrese,
Amber Fratesi, Charmaine Ferreira, Kim,
Mike Tefft, Poppy Brown,Summer, Tiffany Joyner,
and Whitney McGruder. Thank you allso much for your ongoing donations.
(45:56):
You help keep this show available andad-free to people all over the globe.
If you would like to become adonor to the Write Now podcast,
I would love that.
You can do that by clicking the link tobecome a Patreon on Patreon in the show
notes for today's episode. Or,if you are not a fan of Patreon,
(46:17):
there are other ways to donate to theshow via PayPal and Ko-fi or "coffee"
or however it is pronounced. Sospecial, wonderful, beautiful,
thanks to the patrons I've mentioned,
and thank you in advance ifthis is something that you are considering as well.
And with that,
this has been episode 163of the Write Now Podcast,
(46:40):
the podcast that helps allwriters - aspiring, professional,
and otherwise - to find the time, energy,
and courage you need topursue your passion and write.
I'm Sarah Werner,
and I'd like you to remember - while thebest time to plant a tree was 20 years
ago, the second best time is now.
This is the Write Now podcastwith Sarah Werner, Episode 163:
Cynicism About Goals.
(00:28):
Welcome to Write Now, the podcastthat helps all writers - aspiring,
professional, and otherwise- to find the time, energy,
and courage you need to pursueyour passion and write. I'm
your host, Sarah Werner, and I'm feelinga little under the weather today,
so I might be a little lowenergy for today's episode.
But I wanted to recordtoday because today is
(00:52):
January 13th, 2025.
Today is the 10th anniversary,the 10-year anniversary,
of when I first launched the firstepisode of the Write Now Podcast.
So this podcast is nowofficially 10 years old.
10 years! I know that continually saying,
(01:13):
"10 years!" over and over again is notgoing to make it feel any more real
or rational or logical orwhat have you, but wow,
for anyone who has been listening forall 10 years of the existence of this
podcast - which, yes,
has been slightly off and on at times- but if you've been listening since
(01:36):
2015, thank you.
I am so honored to be onthis journey with you. Holy
cow, 10 years. Over those 10 years,
I have changed a lot,
and you have also probably changed a lot.
That is if you're doing somethingright, you've learned, you've grown,
(01:57):
you've tried new things, you've maybegrown in your skill as a writer.
You've maybe put somework into your craft.
You can maybe see a difference now betweenthe writer you are now and the writer
you were - not even 10 years ago - thewriter that you were seven years ago,
the writer that you werefive years ago; heck,
even the writer you were last year.There is a meme that has stuck
(02:21):
very clearly with me over theyears, and it's a picture of a...
I think it's a husky (I don't have it infront of me now because that would make
too much sense).
It's a picture of a husky wearing aboat's high and little eyeglasses,
and he's just sitting like a verygood boy in front of a whiteboard,
and on the whiteboard it says,
(02:42):
"If you ever find yourself cringingat something you did in the past,
it means you have grown as aperson." I wanted to share that with
you because I'm pretty sure if I wentback and listened to some of those
original episodes of the Write Nowpodcast, I would cringe pretty hard.
I didn't know what I was doing.
I was starting the podcastfrom absolutely nothing.
(03:06):
I was figuring it out as I went.So of course, 10 years ago,
there's going to be some cringe-worthymoments. And maybe you've experienced
something like this in your writing,or in other creative projects.
You look back at maybe some poemsthat you wrote in high school,
or a novel that you wrote duringNaNoWriMo a couple of years ago,
(03:26):
or maybe even somethingyou wrote two days ago,
and you look at it and you're like,"Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing.
This is the most cringe pieceof poetry / literature / et
cetera that has ever existed.Why did I think this was okay,
or even good or cool at the time?" Well,
(03:48):
the answer is becauseyou're still learning.
You didn't know 10 years ago ortwo days ago what you know today.
That's a good sign.
If there is a huge difference betweenyour writing or even who you are as a
person from several years agoand the person you are today,
that's growth.I know some people throw away or burn
(04:10):
their old stuff that embarrasses them.
I know other people who starteda podcast the same time I did
and have gotten rid of all of their earlyepisodes because they're embarrassing,
or they feel they're embarrassing.
I know other people who have publishedfictional shows and pulled them from
(04:30):
their podcast feeds and remasteredthem and then rereleased them because
again,
they know better now than theydid back then. I'm not going to
pull any of my Write Now podcast episodes.
You can still go back 10years in the podcast feed and
listen to my very first episodeof the Write Now Podcast,
(04:52):
when I didn't know how to level my micand I didn't know all of that other
stuff I have learnedin the 10 years since.
They'll still be available out therejust because I like the idea of
chronicling my own growth. Ilike the idea of saying, "Yeah,
10 years ago I thoughtX, Y, and Z, ha ha ha.
(05:13):
Wasn't that silly of me?" So whateveryou choose to do with your old
cringey, embarrassing writinga I want you to remember,
it actually might not be that bad. Youmight just be your own worst critic.
You might just be a very harsh judgeof the person that you used to be,
and I feel like that's normal.I get angry at the me I
(05:35):
remember from 10 years ago.Why did you make that decision?
Why didn't you know better? Whydidn't you act more responsibly?
Why didn't you say this instead of that?
I think it's important for us to rememberwhere we came from, how we've grown.
I think that even if we've grown intosome really smart, cool, talented people,
(05:55):
it's humbling in a way to rememberthat we were like that once.
So... I don't know. If youwant to burn your old poetry,
burn your old poetry - just do it safely.
But I don't know,
it might be something that you'llfind you enjoy looking back on in
10 years, in 20 years,
(06:15):
as you sort of take a look overallat the person you were and the
person you've become. I have alot of my old poems handwritten in
a little journal from second and thirdgrade - so here in the United States,
that's when I'm... how old are you?Eight, nine years old? 7, 8, 9?
- and I don't go back and read it,
(06:36):
but I have it because it'spart of me. And again,
maybe you're not that nostalgic.
And this is not a plea for you tokeep everything you've ever written.
I have thrown away a lot - I've thrownaway a lot of what I've written over the
years. I've inadvertentlylost or destroyed what I've written over the years.
I've had computers crash,I've had hard drives wiped.
(06:57):
It's a thing that we deal with.The other thing I wanted to bring up
is that today in 2025,
I feel very grateful that Istarted this podcast in 2015.
When I started the WriteNow podcast back in 2015,
I almost felt like it wastoo late for me to start it,
that everybody had a podcast at that time,
(07:18):
that no one would care what I had to say.
But those ended up not being issues.I am so grateful today that I
have a - off-and-on,
because if I produced andpublished a podcast episode
every week like I initially intended,
there would be a lot morethan 163 episodes - but I
(07:40):
digress.
I was saying how grateful Iwas that I decided to start and
record and publish my first episodeof the Write Now Podcast 10 years ago,
because it has existed for 10years. If I would've put it off,
if I had let my doubts get the bestof me and not started it at all,
my life would be radically different.
(08:02):
Starting this podcast - thisis going to sound cheesy,
but - starting this podcast completelychanged the trajectory of my life in the
best way. It turns out,when you make stuff,
and you make that stuff with theintention of connecting with and uplifting
other people,
it comes back to you in a beautiful way.And B - this is going to
(08:23):
sound obvious, but if I hadn'tstarted this podcast in 2015,
I would not be able to sit here in2025 and be proud of the fact that
I have a podcast that's 10 years old.
This podcast might actually be older thansome of my listeners (and shout out to
you out there - you're awesome!).
(08:44):
I'm saying this becauseI'm reminded of a saying,
and I know I've said iton this podcast before,
but I'm going to say it again becauseI think it's really important:
"The best time to planta tree was 20 years ago.
The second best time is now."So...
those of you who have beendreaming of starting a project,
(09:07):
those of you who have been doodlingand outlining and sort of hedging your
way around the project withoutcommitting to starting it,
I encourage you (09:17):
start it. I know it's easier said than done.
I know that even having startedthis podcast 10 years ago,
it is super difficult for metoday when I've had a long
day, when I'm facing depression,
when there's just a lot going on in life,
it's exhausting to sit downand even think about recording.
(09:39):
But I'm always glad that I did it.
I'm always glad that Ichose to start something,
even if it doesn't go anywhere nearaccording to what I had initially
planned.Having kept a show alive for a decade
now feels like I've achievedsome kind of milestone or goal,
(10:00):
and that's really what I wantto talk about with you today.
The second episode of the Write Nowpodcast, the very second episode,
which came out in January, 2015,
was called "Five Steps To MakingYour Writing Goals A Reality."
There are, if you scrollthrough the years of episodes,
a lot of episodes thatdeal with goal-setting,
(10:24):
and that's because withthe way society works,
with the way things workfor us in this life,
setting goals allows us to workwithin a framework that helps us
to name what we want or need and to move
toward getting what we wantor need. We set a goal,
and we work toward achieving that goal.This is taught to us from a very
(10:47):
early age.
Our parents maybe have a goal forus - that they want us to learn to
walk, learn to talk, learnto clean up our rooms.
A lot of these original goals weren'tthings that we necessarily consciously
decided for ourselves.
You don't see a baby consciouslydebating sitting in their high chair,
(11:11):
"Now, do I really wantto learn how to walk?
Is that a worthwhile goal for me,
a baby?" Some goals areplanned out for us and some
are maybe a little inevitable.
Maybe it's inevitable that acertain baby will learn how to walk.
Maybe that's how our bodies develop.
But it's still somethingthat we work toward,
(11:33):
something that other people want for us,
and something that will probably endup being good for us in the long run.
I was thinking about this whenI first started setting goals.
So many goals were sort of... put upon me,
or assigned to me (I don'tknow if that's the right word).
But you go to kindergarten, first grade,
(11:54):
and at the end of the year - ormaybe you don't know this yet,
you will learn by the end of the year- that you will get a report card.
And on that report card willbe a letter grade (or if you
go to some other different type ofschool that doesn't use letter grades,
whatever the equivalent ofthat is). Basically, the report card is going to ask,
(12:15):
"Did you live up to theexpectations that were set for you?"
I felt like theexpectation was to get an A
in a given subject, todo your absolute best.
I wonder now if things have changed.I don't have children of my own,
so I'm not sure how schools are doingthis now, but when I was in school,
(12:38):
I remember there were motivationalposters and signs throughout
each school that I wentto that said stuff like,
"You can do it!" and "Doyour best!" and stuff about
trying and succeeding and,
"Make it a great day or not - thechoice is yours." There was an
(12:59):
emphasis on doing yourabsolute best for everything
in school,
and then doing your absolute bestfor everything outside of school.
If you were on a swim team, abaseball team, basketball team,
you were expected to do your best inpractice and on the field or in the
court or in the pool or whereverit was you did the sport.
(13:23):
Personally, looking back now,
I'm glad that I was encouragedto do my best and to push myself,
because I've carried those traits intoadulthood and they have served me well.
But I wonder (13:34):
did I really need to do my best?
Did I need to live up to that expectation?
I never agreed to that expectation.
I walked into a classroomas a child and immediately,
without me having anything to do with it,
there was an expectation thatSarah would get an A in the class.
(13:58):
Now, along with goals, there areassociated stakes and consequences.
And so, what was at stake ifI didn't get an A? Well...
I would have a dark future or something.
I don't ever think I asked,
"But what if I don't get an A?" Instead,
I threw myself into school andworked super hard to get As,
(14:22):
so maybe at that time what wasat stake for me was whether I
was living up to what my teachersand family expected of me.
Or maybe just, if you don't do this,
people will be disappointed in you- and that is literally the worst,
most incomprehensible thing ever.
And I'm kind of being seriouswhen I say that. Stakes aside,
(14:45):
we all knew that there wereconsequences for not reaching or
meeting the goals that were placed uponus in school. There were consequences.
If you got an F,
you had to put in extra work over thesummer while everyone else got to run
around and play. Some kids I knewalso faced punishment at home.
The consequences for not getting acertain level of grade in a class
(15:10):
was being grounded, havingtheir allowance taken away,
et cetera.I suppose in a way, too,
this is training for eventually when yougraduate and step into the job market.
Your employer will expect thevery best of you every day.
Your boss, figuratively speaking, expectsyou to get an "A" in their "class".
(15:32):
If you do well, you might getrewarded, you might get a raise,
you might get promoted,you might get a bonus.
And if you don't live up tothose expectations... well,
you're going to get a trip to HR oryou're going to get demoted or you're
just straight up going to get fired.Now,
perhaps it is with enormousirony that I tell you:
(15:55):
when it got to setting personal goals,
the place that I learned todo that was the workplace.
My first couple of jobs were not the
personal-growth-investedtype of employment.
I was doing data entry, I wasdoing entry level marketing,
nothing that ever really inspired myemployer to invest anything more than
(16:18):
minimum wage in me.
But as I continued in my career andI grew more focused and I grew more
talented,
employers started to talk aboutquarterly goals and annual goals
and, "Where do you seeyourself in five years,
Sarah?"I always hated this.
I hated this line of questioning for,well, I guess a number of reasons.
(16:41):
But first and foremost,
I did not like this type of questioningbecause it was not something I had ever
been asked before, and Ididn't know how to answer it.
My knee-jerk reaction was to say,"Well, what do you want me to want?
What am I supposed to want?
Are you trying to ask me if I want tobe a senior vice president for this
company in five years?"Basically,
(17:03):
this goal-setting exercisewas a way that we could set
expectations for ourselves within theworkplace so that our employer would know:
"What kind of worker are you? Doyou want a leadership position?
Are you interested in being a manager?
Are you someone that we shouldfeel justified investing in?
Do we want to keep you around? Whatvalue will you, employee Sarah,
(17:27):
provide to us,
the corporation?" And since you arethe one who is ostensibly setting these
goals, it's implicit thatyou agree with them. Now,
as the workplace changed - becausejust as you and I have changed over the
last 10, 20, maybe more than that, years,
society has changed,
(17:47):
too - and I noticed inthe early 2010s that
employers were less interested in,
"What can you do to make ourcorporate machine thrive?" and
sort of pivoting toward asking,
"How can we as a company help youachieve the career that you want?"
(18:09):
It was not a subtleshift, but it was gradual,
so it happened kind of slowly,and I watched with great interest.
Because when I was in mytwenties, early thirties,
working for a small marketing company,
the fact that they askedme not only, "Sarah,
where do you see yourself in thiscompany in five years," but also, "Sarah,
(18:32):
what do you want for yourself overthe next five years?" Both of those
questions were on our yearly review, andthere were some other questions, too,
and there were quarterly goals andcheck-ins and all of that stuff.
But I remember that was the firstjob where I was really asked,
"What do you want for yourself?" Not,
(18:52):
"What do you think thecompany wants for you?" but,
"What do you want for yourself?"Now,
this is where I might startto get a little cynical,
because I think that in asking, "Sarah,
in addition to what youwant to do for the company,
what do you want for yourself?
What are your personal goals?" they werereally sort of trying to feel around
additionally to what kind of worker I was.
(19:15):
They didn't care that it was mygoal to read 52 books in a year.
They didn't care that it was my goalto start a writer's group downtown.
What they did care was thatSarah wants to start a podcast.
Sarah wants to start freelancing.
Sarah wants to start a business.
(19:35):
It felt really cool at the time thatmy employer was interested in my own
personal goals,
and maybe to some degree they were - Iworked with some really great people.
But I can't help but be a little bitcynical now that more expectations were
simply being placed upon me,
and - for me - it was alwaysso hard to articulate what
(19:57):
I wanted because it was not somethingthat I - and perhaps you - had ever been
trained to ask.I have friends today - multiple people who
are in their fifties, sixties - who say,
"I really still don't know what I wantfrom life." My answer is, of course,
"Hey, do you want to write a book?
Because I can help you with that."But until I entered this particular
(20:21):
job, I had never been encouragedto set goals for myself,
to set personal goals,to clearly establish,
"I want or need this thing in my life,
and I will take the following stepsto attain it." I think a lot of us are
still on autopilot.
I think a lot of us are still runningon not our own personal goals,
(20:42):
but the expectations that have beenset upon us by society or by our
parents or by our schoolor by our employer.
And I'm not going to say that's a goodthing or a bad thing - that's just how we
work. And I didn't know toquestion it at the time,
because when you're younger, youdon't know things you don't know,
(21:03):
and no one can blame youfor that. I didn't know that some of the personal goals
I was setting were perceivedby the company as good,
and others were essentiallya red flag. Again,
I've spoken on this podcastbefore about how I was taken
aside at work after startingthe Write Now podcast,
(21:23):
after I got really into it andstarted printing mugs and t-shirts
(and when I get into something,I really get into it).
So I was really obsessedwith creating this podcast,
and my employer took me asideand gave me a talking to
about how, "Sarah, we lovethat you have a new hobby,
(21:45):
but we need you to bemore outwardly focused.
We need you to appear as thoughyou are just as excited to work
here at this company as you areabout producing your own podcast.
So we're going to need you to toneit down or perhaps stop the podcast."
I didn't know this at the time,
(22:06):
but my starting a creative ventureand getting really stoked about it
was a red flag to my employer,
who knew that they were perhaps notgetting my best energy - that I was
saving my best creative energyfor my own project at home,
and not using it to write ads andblog posts for clients at work.
(22:26):
Whether that's true or not, Ican't say. I was naive and excited,
and I just wanted to dothe things that lit me up.
On the more positive side of things,
they were really aggressive about gettingus to meet both corporate and personal
goals. They held us accountable.
So if you said you wanted to read52 books in a year, gosh darn it,
(22:48):
they were going to push youto read 52 books that year.
And if you didn't do it, there wouldactually be a serious conversation about,
"What got in your way? Whydidn't you achieve your goal?
Was 52 books too manybooks for you to read,
given the balance and structure of yourlife?" So I'm grateful that I learned
how to set goals and reach them. It was,
(23:12):
perhaps ironically,
very useful when I leftmy job and started my own
business. I needed seven differentincome streams? Okay, that was my goal.
I got seven different income streams.
I need to make this amount ofmoney in order to survive? Okay,
I'm going to figure out a way tomake this amount of money to survive.
(23:32):
Goal-setting became everything to me.
"It's my goal to travel to this placeand speak at this conference because
whatever reason." "It's mygoal to publish this thing here
for this reason." Goal-settingbecame the way that I lived my
life,
and I started to think of myself interms of a very binary success or
(23:55):
failure. Did I achieve thisgoal? If the answer was no,
I failed to achieve that goal,
there started to become thisinternalized message of,
"I failed to reach this goal;
I AM a failure." Similarly,if I reached a goal,
that was success, and I wouldfeel good and I would say,
"I AM a success!" And I beganto conflate my self-worth
(24:19):
with the outcomes of the goals thatI was setting. Maybe this is not
something that you dealwith or worry about,
but I promise I amgoing somewhere with it.
Regardless of whether ornot you identify with that,
I've been self-employed and runningmy own business for many years now,
and every year my husband Tim and I sitdown and look at what we want out of
(24:44):
the year ahead. We have a goal settingsession for our business. So...
we want to make this amount of money,
we want to do that bydoing this, this, and this,
we want to release thiscreative project by this
date, et cetera.And I have to tell you,
I sat down to do that thisyear - just a week ago,
(25:07):
actually - and I found myselffeeling really cynical about goal
setting.
And I think a lot of this wasbecause I looked back at 2022 - my
goal in 2022 was to finish writingseason two of Girl In Space.
And then I looked at 2023, and sinceI didn't complete this goal in 2022,
(25:27):
my goal in 2023 was to finishwriting season two of Girl In Space.
Then, when that didn't happen, in 2024,
my goal was to finish writing seasontwo of Girl In Space. And then...
that didn't happen.And I get so caught up in reasons
versus excuses, and asking myself,
(25:49):
Why didn't I achieve this goal?I've had it for so many years.
Am I not doing somethingcorrectly? Am I failing?
Am I a failure?
Am I a failure multiple times over?
Am I a 2022,
2023 and 2024 failure?
And since I've failed toaccomplish this goal for so long,
(26:13):
can I reasonably expect thatI can achieve it in 2025?"
If I was a younger, moreenergetic version of myself,
I would get out my journal and I wouldstart analyzing from previous journals:
"What happened? Why didn't Iproduce more? What was going on?
And are these reasonsor are these excuses?
(26:34):
Why am I not living up to these goals?
Why am I not living up to theseexpectations I have of myself?
Why am I failing? What's the disconnect?
What's going on there?" But it'sbeen an exhausting couple of years,
and I'm not the energetic youngperson that I was years ago.
(26:55):
I'm tired and burned outand beginning to wonder:
have I simply let myselfdown one too many times?
Have I betrayed myself and mypromises to myself one too many
times, or two too many times, et cetera?
Do I no longer believe in myself?
(27:16):
Do I no longer believe thatthis is something I can do,
because I've proved to myself over thelast few years that this is not something
that I can do? And this littlevoice began to ask, "Why bother?
Why set yourself up for something that'sjust going to disappoint you all over
again? Why bother setting goalsthat you're not going to achieve?
(27:38):
You've shown us - whoever we are,
these voices in your head - you've shownus year over year that you can't do
this, and isn't it foolish to set goals,
to set your heart on something,
to set stakes for something thatyou've proven before you can't
achieve?" And I found myselffeeling a little cynical about
(27:59):
even the process of goalsetting itself, like,
"Why do we do this toourselves?" I asked myself.
"Why do we build up these hugedreams and hopes year over
year, fail to achieve them,
and then spiral into feelingworthless or disliking
yourself or hating yourself?"I was reminded that I
(28:23):
was encouraged to set all of these goalsat the workplace because it benefited
the workplace. I remembered anothergoal-setting experience that hadn't
sat well with me.
I was at a conference where a lot ofambitious goal-setting was taking place,
and the person leading the conferencewas leading us through a goal-setting
(28:43):
exercise for our work, for ourprojects, for our creative endeavors,
for our personal business.And this person said, "Okay,
write down how much moneyyou would like to make in...
whatever year was coming up." And Iremember, I sat there, and I was like,
"Well, how reasonableshould I be with this?
We're talking about how much moneydo I want to make; it's like, well,
(29:05):
why would I cut myself off?
Why would I set an upper limit?"Not that I'm a greedy person.
I was just very curious, forthe purposes of this exercise,
what they thought was possible andwhat they were trying to get at.
And the person leading thisworkshop basically said, "Well,
write down as much as you want it tobe." And I felt myself pushing back,
(29:28):
and I said, "Okay, right,
but I don't have a limitedamount of time and energy.
What can I expect ballpark-wise thatwould be reasonable?" And it ended up,
the sort of point of this exercisewas to have you write down a number,
an amount of money you wantedto make in the upcoming year,
and look at it and internalizeit in a way that you would
(29:50):
manifest that amountof money in your work.
And so I wrote down $1 million justfor the heck of it, and I said,
"Okay, I want to make $1 million in...
whatever year it was."And they said, "Great.
Now what kind of stakes areyou going to set for yourself?
What's going to happen if you don'tmake $1 million in the upcoming year?"
(30:12):
And I was like, "I don't know! I'mnot exactly married to this number.
I don't seriously think I can make amillion dollars in a year." And they said,
"Well, that sounds like limited thinkingto me." And I found myself thinking,
all this is going to dois set me up for failure.
Establishing a million-dollarnet revenue in the upcoming year
(30:35):
isn't feasible with whatI have to work with.
I would just be setting myself upto be disappointed with myself,
to hate myself,
by the end of next year. And I realizedlater that there's a difference
between setting a goal and making a wish.
And my feelings of cynicism about goalsdeepened a little bit because I thought,
(30:57):
"Why are they encouraging usto set unreasonable goals?
What is the purpose behind this?"And I realized that they were
setting themselves up to bethe good guys. Like, "Oh,
we encouraged you to set biggoals. We encouraged you to dream.
It's not our fault if you didn't liveup to those goals - you set them.
(31:17):
It's not our fault that you didn'treach them." These were wishes with
stakes attached.
We were setting ourselves up forsomething we weren't going to get,
and we were also setting ourselves up tobe the bad guy when we didn't get them.
And I started feeling reallycynical about goals in general.
(31:37):
Why do we bother? Why are we doing this?
What if I just went out into this comingyear with no goals? What if I just...
existed? What if I just said, "Screw it,
I'm just going to get upevery day like I do and write,
and not reach toward anything.
What's wrong with that?"But that felt wrong, too,
(32:00):
because I recognize the onlyway I've ever gotten anything
accomplished was by setting a goal.
Back in 2017,
I set a goal that I was going toleave my job and work for myself.
In 2014,
I had a goal that I wanted to make apodcast about writing that I would launch
(32:20):
in January, 2015. Way back in school,
whether I set this goal for myself ornot, I had a goal to get straight As,
and I was going to do thatby doing all of my homework,
paying attention in class,
getting As on tests - there was aroadmap to follow. There were steps.
And I wasn't just throwing myselfat a target that was a million miles
(32:43):
away and hoping that I would hit it,
because that's a wish.A goal without a plan, without a roadmap,
is just a wish. Maybe that should havebeen enough to pull me out of my cynicism
and despair. But withwhere I was at the time,
I was feeling cynical andangry and hopeless and
helpless. So I reached outto a friend, a friend who,
(33:06):
like me, is in business for themselves,
and who I knew had been dealing witha lot of their own exhaustion and
cynicism and weariness andhopelessness about not only
their own goals and their work,but the state of the world.
They also have a chronic illness.
And I just needed to talkto somebody who understood.
(33:30):
And I said, "Jen, what am I doing?
What are any of us doing?"And I went into it.
I told her I had set a goal to finishGirl In Space season two in 2022.
And then when I failed to dothat, it was my goal in 2023,
and then my goal in 2024,and now it was 2025,
(33:51):
et cetera, et cetera. I toldher, "I have failed for...
what, four years now to do this?
What makes 2025 any different?"And she said, "Back up - Sarah,
do you really believe that youare a failure?" And in my heart,
I said, "Yes,"
(34:11):
but I knew that that would lead to avery uncomfortable conversation with Jen.
And so I said, "No, of coursenot. I'm not a failure,
but I feel like I have failedcontinuously at doing things that I
wanted to do, and felt it waspossible for me to do." And I said,
"Perhaps these feelings of havingfailed myself and my expectations have
(34:33):
led to me feeling like a failure."And I wanted her to know, like,
I am not a failure as a person,because that would just be silly.
I'm a human being. Ibreathe. I sleep. I eat.
I'm functional as a human being.I'm not a failure as a human being.
But I am a failure at someof these other things.
(34:55):
And she said, "Okay, I getthat. I've been through that.
A lot of people have beenthrough that. But Sarah,
what if you haven't evenfailed at this project?
What if there's somethingelse going on here?
What if there's severalthings going on here?
What if you set an unreasonablegoal for yourself? And also,
(35:16):
what if some other things happenedalong the way?" If you're anything like
me,
it is very easy for you to focus onyour failures and your shortcomings,
and to completely forget andignore the wins and the good
things you do. I'm not a psychologist,
so I can't say why we do something likethat - I think it has something to do
(35:37):
with the negativity bias,
which has us focus on the negativesand the mistakes we make so that we can
continue to learn and evolve. And shesaid, "Okay, back up. What did you do?
What were you able to do on your wayto NOT meeting this goal last year?
What got in the way?
Write down everything that got in theway." And this is the kind of friend
where, when we meet over coffee,
(35:59):
we both bring our journalsbecause we learn from each other.
And so I sat there whileJen sipped her coffee,
and I wrote down things- things that I had
done and ignored or forgotten- and I filled up a whole page.
I didn't finish season two of GirlIn Space in 2022 because I wrote a
(36:21):
book - I wrote 135,000 word book.
I was producing other projects. Idon't know if you've heard it yet,
but I am the executive producerfor Omen, a Fantasy Audio Drama,
which is helmed by my husbandand creative partner, Tim,
which I can link to in theshow notes for this episode.
(I think it's a very good show,
but maybe I'm biased.) I did somefreelance projects here and there.
(36:44):
I do marketing consulting. I buildwebsites. I do some writing coaching.
I spoke at this conference andthat conference. And honestly,
if you go back to episode158 of the Write Now podcast,
I am admittedly a slow writer,
which is less a matter of typingslowly and more, a matter of it,
taking a long time forthoughts and ideas and story to
(37:08):
coalesce in my brain.And I showed this list to Jen,
and she said,
"Does any of this indicate to you thatyou are a failure?" And I said, "Well,
no. BUT, I still feel like one.
I should have been done writingGirl In Space season two,
back in 2022,
2023 at the most."I can't remember if I've talked
(37:31):
about this on the WriteNow podcast or not,
but I have a long history with theword "should." I also have some very
lovely and generous people inmy life who call me out when I
use the word "should." Andshe said, "Okay, Sarah,
you feel like you 'should' have beendone with this season the past year,
the year before that... Whoestablished that 'should'?" And I said,
(37:55):
"Well, I did. I feel like everyoneelse writes a lot faster than I do.
Their brains work better.
It was a 'should' because that wasmy goal." And she asked the question
that I think I had beenhiding from for actual years.
Given my circumstances,my energy, my brain,
(38:16):
the way I work - was finishingseason two of Girl In Space
by a certain deadline- was that a real goal,
or was it a wish?
Was it something that was reasonableor unreasonable of me to expect of
myself? And that was thedissonance. That was the disconnect.
(38:37):
I very conveniently... well,
"forgot" is maybe not theright word - "ignored".
I very conveniently ignored severalthings that I had learned to be true about
myself over the years. And justlike at that business conference,
I wrote down a million dollars withouta plan on how I was going to get there.
I just sat down every dayand wrote as much as I could.
(39:00):
But if I backed it up and I looked atthe number of words I was writing per day
with all the other things goingon with my life circumstances...
if I was honest about that,
I would've realized a lot earlierthat I had set an unreasonable goal
that I had instead made a wish.
And by not supernaturallymaking that wish come true,
(39:21):
I had grown cynical about goal-setting.And so I said, "Ah, Jen,
I DID fail at setting a reasonablegoal." And she said, "Okay, in the past,
maybe, yeah - but now whatare you going to do about it?
How are you going to moveforward?" And I realized,
as angry at myself as Iwas for having worked so
(39:43):
hard toward an unreasonable goal,
I wasn't going to spend the upcomingyear sitting in a corner and crying about
it.
Not that there's anything wrong withcrying - I could sit in the corner and cry
for a little bit, feel myfeelings, take a deep breath,
and then get up and do something about it.So after my coffee with
Jen, I went home and,
(40:03):
despite not having the energyand chutzpah that I had in years
past, I sat down and I did this (40:08):
I opened my journal and I said, "Okay,
how do I set a reasonablegoal?" And with so many other
things in writing and in life,
I had to learn how to doit all over again. The
exercise became (40:25):
start with what you want, and work backward from there,
staying flexible and rememberingthat life gets in the way sometimes.
Given all of that, whatcan I reasonably achieve?
How can I do my best and evenpush myself without my goal
turning into an impossiblewish? What is the balance there?
(40:48):
At what point can you strive and improve,
but also at what point do youneed to simply accept? I had
to accept that I could not sitdown and reliably churn out
4,000 words a day, everyday, 365 days a year.
I've tried to do that and failedmiserably, because it's not - for me,
(41:10):
at least - a reasonable goal.
I can write 4,000 words in a good dayif I don't have any interruptions,
if my brain is cooperating with me.
But I can't sustainably do thatevery day with no break. So:
start with where you want to be.Write that down. Work backward,
keeping your responsibilitiesand personal limitations in mind.
(41:34):
Stay flexible.
And then work forward again and adjustyour goal from there. There are some
circumstances in our lives thatwe can work toward improving,
that we can work toward changing.
But there are other realitiesthat I think we have to accept,
and we have to build intoour goal-setting process.
And I'm still working on this myself- I'm not good at this yet. But...
(41:56):
if you have kids to takecare of in your life,
you have to factor thatinto your writing goals.
You can't just "Hansel and Gretel" them- you can't send them into the woods
to fend for themselves whileyou write your masterpiece.
So how do I create a goal that honorsthat limitation of my time and energy,
(42:16):
while also honoring my ambitionsof what I truly want to achieve?
What does that balance look like?And if you, like me,
were or are experiencingsome cynicism or hopelessness
about your own writing goals, I wantyou to know that you're not alone.
There's a lot wrapped up in thegoals that we set for ourselves,
(42:38):
our capability, our capacity,our ambitions, our hopes,
our dreams, our expectations of ourselves,
our self-worth,
stated or unstated expectationsthat others may have of us,
and a whole boatload of 'should's.But we need to be really careful
in our discernment, in our distinctionbetween understanding that,
(43:01):
what we've set for ourself:
is it a reasonable goalor is it simply a wish?
And if it is a wish oran unreasonable goal,
what can we do to shift thatinto something that is reasonable
and doable?Because there is a difference,
an enormous difference betweenpushing yourself to pursue a goal and
(43:23):
burning yourself out,chasing after a wish.
So looking back on whatwe've talked about today,
those goals that you found yourselfreaching toward and that maybe you found
yourself feeling a little cynicalabout... Who set that goal?
Who set that expectationfor you? Did you set that?
Did someone else set it for you?
(43:45):
Did you agree to have that set for you?
Did you understand when you weresetting that goal that it needed to be
realistic, that you needed a plan toget there? (It's okay if you didn't,
because I just spent the last however-manyyears chasing an unreasonable goal.)
With that goal, what steps do you needto get there, and what is at stake?
(44:05):
Are there any consequences along the way?
Are you setting yourself up for success,or are you setting yourself up for
failure? I know this episodehas gone on a little longer than
normal episodes, but I feel likethere was a lot to talk about here.
I would love to hear your ownexperience with goal-setting,
(44:27):
goal-reaching, wish-setting,anything along those lines.
Your experience is valid and valuable,
and I would love to hearwhat you have to say.
You can get in touch with me by leavinga comment on the show notes for today's
episode - this is episode number 163- and you can find those show notes
(44:47):
either right here in yourpodcatcher or out on my
website at sarahwerner dot com (that's
S-A-R-A-H-W-E-R-N-E-Rdot com) and navigating
to this episode, episode 163,
scrolling down to the bottom ofthat page, and submitting a comment.
I do read and try to respond to everysingle comment I get on the website.
(45:10):
So yeah,
I look forward to hearing from you.I would not be able to make this
podcast the way that I do andpay for hosting, et cetera,
if it were not for the generous,beautiful donations of people on Patreon.
Patreon is a secure third-party donationplatform that allows you to give $1 per
episode, $2 per episode,whatever you wish,
(45:33):
to help produce and distributethis podcast. Specifically,
I would like to thankLaurie, Regina Calabrese,
Amber Fratesi, Charmaine Ferreira, Kim,
Mike Tefft, Poppy Brown,Summer, Tiffany Joyner,
and Whitney McGruder. Thank you allso much for your ongoing donations.
(45:56):
You help keep this show available andad-free to people all over the globe.
If you would like to become adonor to the Write Now podcast,
I would love that.
You can do that by clicking the link tobecome a Patreon on Patreon in the show
notes for today's episode. Or,if you are not a fan of Patreon,
(46:17):
there are other ways to donate to theshow via PayPal and Ko-fi or "coffee"
or however it is pronounced. Sospecial, wonderful, beautiful,
thanks to the patrons I've mentioned,
and thank you in advance ifthis is something that you are considering as well.
And with that,
this has been episode 163of the Write Now Podcast,
(46:40):
the podcast that helps allwriters - aspiring, professional,
and otherwise - to find the time, energy,
and courage you need topursue your passion and write.
I'm Sarah Werner,
and I'd like you to remember - while thebest time to plant a tree was 20 years
ago, the second best time is now.
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