You're Setting the Wrong Goals
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What if the goals you're chasing are actually setting you up to fail?
Work-life balance. Finding your passion. Scaling fast.
These sound like the right goals, don't they?
But here's the uncomfortable truth I need to share with you: You're not burning out because you're doing something wrong. You're burning out because you're chasing the wrong goals entirely.
I know that's hard to hear, especially if you just set your 2026 goals a few days ago. But after building my business slowly for seven years while working 20-40 hours a week at another job, I've learned something critical: Most people are optimizing for the wrong metrics.
Let me show you what I mean.
The Three Wrong Goals Setting You Up for Burnout
Whether you're a student grinding through all-nighters, a corporate employee using PTO to recover instead of live, or an entrepreneur resenting the business you built—you've been sold the same lies about success.
Let's break them down.
Wrong Goal #1: Work-Life Balance
This is the biggest lie of all.
Work-life balance is an impossible standard that sets you up for failure. And honestly? Most of us will likely never feel balanced. Balance is a losing game.
Here's why it doesn't work:
Balance implies equal weight—but your life isn't a scale
It assumes all areas need equal attention at all times—which is just not how life works
It makes you feel guilty when you're focused on one area over another
It's a moving target that keeps you constantly feeling like you're failing
For students: You're told to balance academics, social life, extracurriculars, sleep, and self-care. It's impossible. So you sacrifice sleep and self-care just to keep up—then spend your breaks recovering.
For corporate employees: You're told to balance career ambitions with family time, self-care, and hobbies. So you work 50-hour weeks, skip the gym, and use PTO to catch up on sleep instead of actually living.
For entrepreneurs: You're told to balance client work, business development, marketing, admin, and somehow still have a personal life. So you work nights and weekends and call it hustle.
The goal of balance keeps you in a perpetual state of not-enough. And that's exactly why it's the wrong goal.
Wrong Goal #2: "If You Love It, You Won't Burn Out"
This one is categorically and factually untrue—and it's dangerous.
Passion doesn't prevent burnout. It can actually accelerate it.
People burn out doing things they love all the time. In fact, the people most at risk for burnout are the ones who care the most.
Students: Your passion for your future drives you to study until 2am, take one more AP class, push through exhaustion. Your passion is literally burning you out.
Corporate employees: Your passion for your career keeps you answering emails at 9pm, saying yes to extra projects, working through lunch. Your dedication is destroying you.
Entrepreneurs: Your passion for your mission makes you available 24/7, makes you pour everything into your business, makes you sacrifice your health for your dream.
Here's what nobody tells you: Passion is fuel, but without proper systems and boundaries, you're just burning faster.
This is why self-care isn't optional when you're passionate—it's the infrastructure that lets you sustain that passion long-term.
Wrong Goal #3: Fast Growth at Any Cost
The third wrong goal: speed over sustainability.
We're obsessed with six-figure years, rapid scaling, explosive growth, getting there faster.
But here's the question nobody asks: Get where, exactly? And will you still be standing when you arrive?
Students: Racing to graduate early, packing your schedule, building the perfect resume—but burning out before your career even starts.
Corporate employees: Chasing the promotion, the title bump, the next level as fast as possible—but at what cost? Your health? Your relationships? Your sanity?
Entrepreneurs: Trying to hit arbitrary revenue milestones, scale quickly, launch constantly—building fast but on a foundation that can't support the weight.
Fast growth feels like success until your body forces you to stop. Until you can't get out of bed. Until you dread the thing you once loved.
I've seen too many people quit on their dreams, their passions, the things they thought would make them happy—because their goal was the speed with which they got there, not whether they could sustain it.
The RIGHT Goal: Sustainability (And Why It Actually Works)
Here's what we should be optimizing for instead: the ability to keep going.
Not balance. Not passion alone. Not speed.
Sustainability.
The real goal isn't to work less or achieve less—it's to build something you can sustain for the long term.
As Alex Hormozi says: "You get lucky by staying in the game long enough for luck to find you."
Luck, opportunity, timing, momentum—they all require one thing: you still being in the game.
You can't capitalize on opportunities if you've already burned out and quit. You can't build momentum if you're constantly stopping to recover. You can't create lasting impact if you can't sustain the work.
The businesses and careers that win aren't always the fastest—they're the ones that last.
The Sustainable Success Framework: How to Actually Prevent Burnout
So what does sustainability actually look like? I've built my entire burnout coaching practice around three pillars that prevent burnout:
Pillar 1: Systems
Your business, academics, or career needs infrastructure that carries the weight.
Students: Study systems that don't require all-nighters. Organizational systems that prevent last-minute panic. Time management that builds in rest, not just grind.
Corporate employees: Workflow systems that let you leave work at work. Communication systems that protect your boundaries. Project management that prevents constant firefighting.
Entrepreneurs: Client systems that run without you. Content systems that don't require daily hustle. Operations that scale without adding hours.
Systems aren't sexy. But they're what make everything else work.
Pillar 2: Self-Care
This isn't bubble baths and face masks (though those are great).
This is nervous system regulation. Energy management. Recovery protocols. Boundaries that actually protect your capacity.
Students: Sleep hygiene that's non-negotiable. Movement breaks between study sessions. Weekends that restore you instead of just catching you up.
Corporate employees: Using PTO for living, not recovering. Building micro-moments of regulation into your workday. Hard stops that you actually honor.
Entrepreneurs: Client boundaries that protect your energy. Work schedules that account for your human limitations. Rest periods planned proactively, not reactively after you crash.
Self-care is the practice of treating yourself like you matter as much as your goals do.
Pillar 3: Mindset
This is about the stories you tell yourself about success, worth, and what it means to be "enough."
Students: Redefining success beyond grades. Understanding that rest isn't laziness. Believing that your worth isn't tied to your productivity.
Corporate employees: Knowing that your value isn't your title. Understanding that boundaries don't make you less committed. Believing you deserve a life outside of work.
Entrepreneurs: Trusting that slow and sustainable beats fast and collapsed. Understanding that your business should serve your life, not consume it. Believing that your worth isn't your revenue.
Mindset work isn't about positive thinking—it's about fundamentally shifting what you're aiming for.
What Sustainability Actually Looks Like in Practice
Optimizing for sustainability instead of balance, passion alone, or speed means asking different questions:
Not "How fast can I get there?" but "Can I maintain this pace for years?"
Not "How much can I fit in?" but "What actually moves the needle?"
Not "How do I do more?" but "What systems let me do this with less effort?"
It means making different choices:
Building slower but stronger
Saying no to opportunities that don't align
Investing in systems and self-care upfront, not after you crash
Measuring success by your ability to keep going, not just by outcomes
For students: Choose the course load you can sustain, not the one that looks impressive. Build study systems that don't require heroic effort. Protect your health now so you don't spend your twenties recovering.
For corporate employees: Draw boundaries even when it's uncomfortable. Build systems that let you perform well within reasonable hours. Use your ambition to build a sustainable career, not a burnout trajectory.
For entrepreneurs: Build your business to support your life, not consume it. Create offers and systems that scale without scaling your hours. Measure success by longevity and fulfillment, not just revenue.
The Truth About Building Slowly
Here's what I know after seven years of building slowly while working another job:
The sustainable path might look less impressive in year one. But by year seven? You're still here. You're still energized. You still love what you do. And you've outlasted everyone who burned bright and burned out.
That's the goal worth chasing.
Sustainability over balance.
Staying power over speed.
Building something that lasts over building something that impresses.
Because the goal isn't just to get there—it's to be standing when you arrive, still loving what you do, still capable of doing it.
Your Next Step
If you're realizing you've been chasing the wrong goals, here's what to do:
Join Burnout-Proof Business—my membership for high-achievers who are done with the burnout cycle and ready to build something sustainable.
Inside, you get:
Twice-weekly Implementation Labs where we build these systems together
The complete Sustainable Success Framework
A community of people who actually get it
Real support for building a life and business that doesn't break you
Founding member pricing ends late January, so if this resonates, now's the time.
And if you're a student or corporate employee thinking "this sounds great but I'm not an entrepreneur"—these principles work whether you're building a business, building a career, or building your academic foundation. The only difference is the application.
Ready to stop chasing the wrong goals?
Join the Sunday CEO Diaries for weekly burnout-proof strategies, or come hang in the free Skool community to connect with other high-achievers building sustainably.
Because you deserve a life and career you can actually sustain—not one that breaks you.
