Every January, we've done the same ritual. Set aggressive goals. Attach rigid metrics. Hold ourselves to achievement standards that would make a corporate performance review look gentle. Run a marathon. Build a six-figure business. Transform your body completely. And when we inevitably fall short—because life happened, because we're human, because the goal never accounted for our actual needs—we internalize it as personal failure.
What if the problem isn't your discipline? What if it's the entire framework of how we've been taught to grow?
Enter soft goals: intention-based ambitions that prioritize how you want to feel and who you want to become over what you want to achieve or prove. They're not about lowering standards. They're about raising awareness of what actually sustains change.
What Makes a Goal "Soft"
Soft goals are directional rather than destinational. They orient you toward a way of being instead of demanding a specific outcome by a specific date.
Hard goal: Lose 10kg by June.
Soft goal: Move my body in ways that feel nourishing and learn to eat intuitively.
Hard goal: Meditate for 20 minutes daily.
Soft goal: Create more moments of stillness throughout my day.
Hard goal: Read 50 books this year.
Soft goal: Spend more time with ideas that expand how I see the world.
Notice the difference. Hard goals are binary—you either hit them or you don't. Soft goals are continuous—every day offers an opportunity to move toward them, and there's no failure state, only feedback.
This isn't semantics. It's a fundamental shift in how you relate to your own growth.
Why Soft Goals Actually Work Better
Research on behavior change increasingly shows that intrinsic motivation—doing something because it feels meaningful—outlasts extrinsic motivation—doing something for an external outcome. Hard goals are almost entirely extrinsic. You're chasing a number, a deadline, external validation.
Soft goals tap into intrinsic drivers: How do I want to feel? What kind of person am I becoming? What brings me alive? These questions create sustainable motivation because the reward is built into the practice itself, not deferred to some future achievement.
Additionally, soft goals are adaptable. Life changes. Your capacity fluctuates. Hard goals penalize you for being human. Soft goals flex with you. If you're exhausted, "move joyfully" might mean a gentle stretch. If you're energized, it might mean dancing for an hour. Both honor the intention.
How to Set Soft Goals That Actually Guide You
Start with feeling states, not outcomes
Ask: How do I want to feel more often? Grounded? Creative? Connected? Rested? Your soft goal should move you toward that feeling state. "I want to feel more present" becomes "Create daily tech-free moments to connect with what's in front of me."
Make them present-tense and process-oriented
Soft goals describe ongoing practices, not future endpoints. Use language like "I am learning to..." or "I practice..." or "I'm exploring..." This keeps you in the process rather than constantly evaluating whether you've "arrived."
Build in permission for imperfection
Your soft goal should explicitly allow for variation. "Move my body regularly in ways that serve my energy" already contains permission for rest days, different intensities, and adaptation. You're not trying to be consistent in form—you're being consistent in intention.
Check in with curiosity, not judgment
Weekly, ask: Am I moving toward this intention? What's working? What needs adjusting? This isn't about grading yourself. It's about course-correcting based on real data about your life, not abstract ideals about what you "should" be doing.
Examples Across Life Domains
Relationships: Instead of "Have date night every Friday," try "Prioritize quality connection with my partner in whatever form feels nourishing this week."
Creativity: Instead of "Finish writing a book," try "Show up regularly to creative practice without attachment to outcome."
Health: Instead of "Hit the gym five times weekly," try "Build a sustainable relationship with movement that I look forward to."
Personal growth: Instead of "Complete three courses this year," try "Stay curious about topics that challenge how I think."
Rest: Instead of "Get eight hours of sleep nightly," try "Honor my body's signals for rest and create conditions that support good sleep."
The Paradigm of Enough
Soft goals operate from a fundamentally different belief system than hard goals. Hard goals come from scarcity: you're not enough yet, you need to achieve more to be worthy. Soft goals come from sufficiency: you're enough now, and growth is about becoming more fully yourself, not fixing what's broken.
This doesn't mean you stop having ambition or challenging yourself. It means the challenge comes from curiosity and care rather than self-punishment and fear. You're not white-knuckling your way toward a finish line. You're cultivating a way of being that feels aligned.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Some days, your soft goal to "move joyfully" looks like an intense workout because that's what your body craves. Other days, it's a gentle walk. Both are wins because both honor the intention beneath the goal.
You're not tracking metrics. You're tracking alignment. Am I living more consistently with my values? Am I feeling more of what I said I wanted to feel? Am I becoming who I want to become?
These questions create a different relationship with growth—one where progress isn't linear, where setbacks are information rather than failure, and where the point isn't arriving somewhere better but inhabiting yourself more fully right here.
That's not soft in the sense of weak. That's soft in the sense of sustainable, humane, and wise.