The Self-Worth Trap of Goals

I was at a professional advisor breakfast this week put on by my friend Steve Van Diest.

One of the topics we discussed was the challenges we were facing in our careers. Several folks volunteered to contribute their challenge to a whiteboard.

One gentleman shared his challenge around the negative emotions he felt when he missed a goal.

Steve asked the room: “Who else feels like this?”

Quite a few hands went up.

It struck me in that moment that perhaps, in addition to a clear need for decoupling self-worth from goal achievement, many of us are thinking about goals all wrong.

Maybe we’ve all set a self-worth trap by focusing on the outcome at the expense of taking action.

Why outcomes fail us

Most of us are taught to start with the outcome.

• $1,000,000 in revenue.

• Lose 20 pounds.

• Publish a book.

There’s nothing wrong with the dream itself. Ambition can be healthy.

But outcomes live in a world full of variables we don’t control. Clients delay. Markets swing. Tariffs appear. Publishers say no.

When we tether our worth to those outcomes, we’re handing over the keys to our confidence. We’ve built a scoreboard we don’t fully control — and then told ourselves that’s the only score that matters.

It’s no wonder so many of us feel small when we miss.

Why action is different

Action, on the other hand, is always available.

The phone call.
The healthy meal.
The half-hour of writing before the kids wake up.

When goals are rooted in action, the scoreboard becomes feedback instead of judgment.

The game shifts from “Did I win?” to “Did I play well today?”

And if the answer is yes, then that’s enough.

Where outcomes still fit

This doesn’t mean outcomes are meaningless. They give us direction. They set the compass. They remind us what mountain we’re trying to climb.

But they shouldn’t be where our identity lives.

If outcomes define you, then every missed quarter, every rejected pitch, every unexpected setback feels like an indictment of who you are.

If action defines you, then you have something firmer to stand on.

Because the truth is, no matter how disciplined you are, the uncontrollable will eventually show up. Tariffs. Recessions. Illness. Bad luck.

If your only measure of worth is the outcome, you’ll collapse under forces you never had power over in the first place.

A universal challenge

I think that’s why so many hands went up at that breakfast.

The gentleman who spoke about his negative emotions wasn’t weak. He was honest. He put words to what many of us in the room were quietly carrying: I feel bad when I miss my goals.

That feeling wasn’t rare. It was nearly universal.

Maybe the problem isn’t our discipline. Maybe the problem is how we’ve defined the game.

A different frame

Here’s another way to see it:

• The outcome is the compass.

• The action is the win.

When you make that shift, you stop putting your worth on trial every quarter. You start measuring yourself by what you can actually do today.

The calls.
The meals.
The words on the page.

Those wins are enough to build a foundation. And over time, they stack up in ways the scoreboard will eventually recognize.

But even if the scoreboard doesn’t? You haven’t failed. You played the right game.

The takeaway

The scoreboard takes care of itself when you focus on the plays.

And even more importantly, you never confused the score with your worth.