Confessions From A Habitual Over Planner

I had a simple goal for 2026 - to change every single thing about myself, my life and my surroundings. Easy peasy, right? 

From DreamWorks How to Train Your Dragon

In December 2025, I developed a 10 page document titled 2026 Goals Plan. Drafted it like it was a business plan. Had detailed goals for 7 distinct areas of my life: 

1. Health and Fitness 
2. Mental and Emotional Wellness 
3. Career and Professional Development 
4. Personal Productivity and Organization
5. Financial Stability
6. Family and Relationships
7. Personal Development and Enjoyment

So yeah, pretty much EVERYTHING. And I am talking goals, objectives, plans of action and metrics and check-ins for each area. I won't bore you will all of the detailed plans (and boy, were they detailed) but I will share my personal mission statement. Yeah, wrote one of those too.

In 2026, I commit to living with structure, purpose, and intentionality across every area of my life. I will prioritize my health, fitness, and wellbeing; cultivate emotional stability and resilience; grow professionally and creatively; strengthen meaningful relationships; and manage my finances with clarity and discipline. I will pursue my passions, including running, reading, and personal projects, while supporting my daughter and nurturing connections that align with my values. Through consistent habits, mindful reflection, and purposeful action, I will honor my growth, celebrate progress, and create a year defined by balance, focus, and forward momentum.

So realistic and doable, right? Anyway, you have probably figured out how this has all panned out. Instead of following it to the letter and becoming a structured, stable person with emotional resilience and a growth trajectory that has finally found happiness and inner peace, I am an even bigger mess now than I was when I hit, what I considered" rock bottom" 9 months ago. Oh, sweet summer child, if only I knew how much further I could fall...

I started the year all pumped to execute. And I promise I tried. I really tried. But, as I am sure you can see what I clearly did not, drastically trying to improve every aspect of your life fueled only by the hope of finding some kind of magical motivation or discipline that I've never shown in the prior 48 years of my life, yeah, failure was destined. When I would focus on one area, the others would suffer. Then I would freak out and try to compensate. I would vow to fix it. I'd make a new plan. Then I would get exhausted trying to do it all and end up doing nothing.  Then I would hit a new rock bottom from where I would then need a new plan to recover from.

I guess you could say that I technically did find structure. Too bad the structure is as follows: 

• Hate Myself
• Decide to Change
• Make an Extensive Plan
• Get Completely Overwhelmed by Plan
• Fail at Plan
• Spiral
• Hate Myself
• Repeat (Indefinitely) 

Me, running a 50K

I pretty much have repeated this cycle every month since the beginning of the year. And the
worst part, is that I actually have met a few of my goals, some of which anyone would consider to be pretty big goals (I've read 60 books already, paid off 3 credit cards and I've run over 1,000 miles already including completing a 50K in May, oh and I've travelled internationally including climbing not one, but TWO mountains in China) but I have not been able to enjoy or celebrate them because all I can see is this huge uncompleted document.

So here I am. Staring at the last 4 months of the year and trying to figure out how to salvage it. Mostly, I've learned I cannot just plan my way out of how I feel. I need to figure out exactly what I really want, and start making small, meaningful changes towards the life I want. Huge comprehensive documents aren't cutting it. And you know it is bad when even your ChatGPT (yes, I use it to help me plan) keeps telling you to quit with the planning and challenges. Direct quote from 2 days ago - "You have a tendency—and I say this with affection—to respond to feeling overwhelmed by trying to create a better version of yourself. New plan. New challenge. New system. New goal. New thing to fix." Yeah, I've got AI telling me to chill the hell out even. 

So where do I go from here? (Seriously, if you have any ideas, please let me know). Currently, I am working on a new plan which I am calling "Survive September." That's it. Get through this month. If I make some progress, great, I'd love that, but as long as I make it through without digging my hole any deeper I will consider it a win. 

And honestly, starting blogging again, while on the surface may seem like something else I've added to make my life more difficult, is actually something that I think will help. I missed writing. I missed sharing. I think what I am learning is that what it really comes down to is that I miss living a life that I wanted to write about and share. So I am doing the writing and sharing part first and maybe, just maybe, that will help manifest the life worth those things again.

Feel free to share anything, seriously, anything, in the comments below. Can you relate? Have you tried a life reset and have it fail miserably? Or did it succeed (pretty please tell me how if so). While I am fully convinced that this blog will be just me shouting into the void, it's always nice to know that it is not. Let me know you're there.