Why Most 2026 Goals Won't Matter

Originally sent in From the Desk of Justin Hubbard on December 28, 2025.

The short version: Change doesn't come from new targets. It comes from deciding who you're becoming and removing everything that no longer fits, because who you are determines what you do, and what you do determines what you have.

Every December, I see the same thing happen…

Good operators. Smart people. Hard workers.

They start talking about next year's goals as if that's the thing that's been missing all along.

New revenue targets.

New things to buy.

New routines.

New plans to "lock in" discipline after the holidays.

And almost none of it is ever carried out.

And it's not because people don't want better outcomes, because they obviously do if they're taking the time to write down their goals, but because they're treating goals like the destination instead of what they actually are… tools.

Levers you pull in service of something deeper than the goal itself.

What actually determines whether 2026 looks any different than 2025 has very little to do with the goals you write down and everything to do with the person you're becoming.

That's the part most people don't get.

If you want real compounding change, you have to slow down long enough to get honest about what truly matters. Not what you think you should care about. But what sits at the center of your life right now.

When you force yourself to put that on paper and then narrow it down, something uncomfortable happens. You realize you can't treat everything as equally important.

Some things have to move to the edges so a few things can move to the center. You can't focus on everything at the same time. Until that happens, your attention stays fragmented and your effort stays diluted. You might make a little progress on a bunch of things, instead of full progress on true priority number 1, and then on priority number 2, and so on.

Once you're clear on those few things, the next step is NOT motivation or discipline. It's reorganization. Your calendar, your energy, your decisions all have to start reflecting that clarity. Otherwise, it's just words on a page. Mere thoughts in your noggin.

This is where a lot of guys stall out. They keep the same schedule. The same distractions. The same commitments. Doing the same shit they were doing in the previous year hoping and wishing upon a star that something will change when they haven't.

Then they're surprised when the year plays out exactly like the last one.

There's a deeper reason this happens.

Most people are living in the wrong order. They think if they do enough of the right things, they'll eventually have the results they want, and then they'll finally become the person they admire.

That sequence sounds logical, but it's backwards and I'll explain why.

Lasting change works in the opposite direction.

⇢ Who you are determines what you do.

⇢ What you do determines what you have.

Trying to change outcomes without changing identity is why progress feels exhausting and temporary and why most give up.

That's also why goals come and go.

My goals change all the time. The mission underneath them doesn't. Over the years, the way I've pursued that mission has shifted as my season of life changed. Different projects. Different businesses. Different methods. Same underlying direction.

That's my alignment. And like a car, it needs occasional adjustment as the miles add up.

When the mission is clear, you don't cling to outdated methods just because they once worked. You adjust without losing yourself in the process.

Here's what no one wants to hear but already know is true.

You don't move forward by adding on more. You move forward by removing what no longer fits who you're becoming.

The obligations that drain you.

The distractions that fracture your focus.

The patterns you've outgrown but keep around because they're familiar, comfortable, and feel safe under your blankie.

In my own experience, after a lot of tinkering and reflecting, clarity shows up through commitment and subtraction.

And the more honest you are about that, the lighter everything starts to feel.

You do have a purpose.

It's not something you need to discover or earn. It's something you choose to define and then protect through your decisions. No one is standing in your way. The only real resistance comes from what you're unwilling to let go of.

So before you write down a single goal for 2026, take a breath. Decide who you're becoming. Let that future version of you set the standards. Then allow the goals to change as needed to serve that direction.

That's how the most progress I've ever experienced happens. It's quiet. It's consistent. And doesn't start over every January.

What I told a client about his goal sheet

Here's a message I sent to a client, based on the goal sheet he shared with me:

Your goal list is great. Getting your thoughts on paper is definitely important and gives you the ability to look at everything with perspective — kind of a bird's-eye-view approach — which I think most people have trouble doing when it comes to goals.

What I think most people struggle with is formulating the strategy on how to accomplish those goals within a specified period of time. People typically look at goals as things to have, whether physical or emotional, but they never look at the approach quite the right way. In my opinion, a lot of people view achieving goals as doing in order to have the goal, in order to become the person they're trying to become after achieving those goals.

I take the opposite approach to that. Instead of the idea of Do → Have → Be, the approach is the opposite: Be → Do → Have. It's very simple. You need to look at this as who you need to become in order to accomplish those goals. Becoming the person who can accomplish those goals first, and adopting those attributes, is what leads to doing the right things, which then leads to achieving the goals.

For example, you don't just go after pipeline in a haphazard way. You first need to become the type of person where deal flow is a byproduct of what you do. So look at it from that perspective: who are those people in those positions? What do they do to have what they have? How can you mimic that in order to achieve a similar result? And just as important, what kind of environment do they operate in that makes those behaviors normal and repeatable rather than forced?

Most people never end up achieving their goals because they never put an actual timeframe on them and because the goals are never lofty enough. They seem achievable, they seem doable, and because of that, there's no real urgency. People put them aside and assume they'll get to them when they have time — but they never have time.

Another person I've read and have a lot of respect for is Dr. Benjamin Hardy. In 10x Is Easier Than 2x, the book he co-wrote with Dan Sullivan, the approach is magnifying a goal to 10 times what you thought you could achieve — something almost unrealistic and unattainable. Hardy has also written about a question from Peter Thiel: how could you achieve your 10-year plan in the next six months? Take what a normal timeframe would be to complete something like that, which might be 10 years, and shrink it down to something extreme, like one year. If you think a goal would take 10 years, look at it from a one-year perspective.

What that does is it removes everything else in your life that doesn't move you forward toward accomplishing that goal. It gives you a lens to filter out the things that don't actually need to be done. It also forces you to intentionally design your environment — your schedule, habits, commitments, and even the people you're around — so that the right actions become the default. That's one of the most important things I've learned. So much of what we do on a daily basis has no positive impact on what we're trying to achieve, yet we do it anyway in a somewhat robotic way. A lot of times we don't even know why we're doing it, and many times it doesn't really need to be done.

That can apply to everything from daily habits, to certain aspects of family time, to business dealings. After coming up with the goal and the strategy, the real work is auditing how you spend your time for a week and cutting out everything that doesn't move you closer to that goal. At the same time, it's about reshaping your environment so that what remains supports the person you're trying to become. That's what that exercise is really about. It's not about achieving a 10-year goal in one year — although that can happen — it's about gaining clarity on what actually needs to be done.

And when you do that, you'll find you can accomplish far more, far quicker.

— Justin

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