I Missed My Goal. Here’s Why That’s Not the Story That Matters.

When we look forward to a new year, most of us feel a pull to look back on the one we're leaving behind. We need some completeness. Some sort of, “Well, how can I plan for something upcoming if I don't look at where I've already been?”

I looked over the goals I set for 2025, and I had only three. I kept my expectations very reasonable and achievable. Despite that, I didn't achieve 33% of my goals. That's right, I didn't achieve one of my 2025 resolutions.

The resolution that I didn't achieve was to get to a goal weight. Most of you know I've been on a GLP-1 for over a year. I've lost 46 pounds from my highest weight, but my goal had been to lose 61. So it's not like I was close. I was 15 pounds away from achieving my goal. And I saw this coming. I was doing the tracking, and I kept recalculating the math. I knew I was probably going to miss it, but I didn't think I'd miss it by this much.

Cue the shame. Cue the telling myself, "You know how to achieve goals. You have all the resources you need to reach your goal weight. How could you possibly let this get so out of control?"

Part of me questioned whether I'd made the right goal. That's important when you don't reach a goal, re-evaluating whether the goal was the right goal in the first place. I liked the reasons I picked my goal weight. It wasn't ridiculously low, it seemed achievable, and it's a weight where I'd been in the past and felt really comfortable. So, at the time, it was the right goal.

So, here's where I have a choice. I can either throw in the towel and say, "I'm never going to make it to my goal weight." I can keep beating myself up and ask, "What's wrong with me?" Or I can shift my focus a little bit and appreciate how far I've come.

Entrepreneur coach Dan Sullivan and organizational psychologist Dr. Benjamin Hardy discuss the concept of the gap and the gain, delineating it in their 2021 book "The Gap and The Gain." They speak of how highly ambitious people tend to measure themselves by the gap between what they've achieved and what they'd hoped to achieve. And we've all gotten far by evaluating our gaps. We looked at where we stood in class rankings in med school. We look at our colleagues who have gotten promoted and question what we could be doing differently to get to where they are. So I'm not here to badmouth evaluating ourselves by our gaps, because doing that has brought us to where we are (which is very far, in the grand scheme of human existence). But as I've found, it doesn’t always feel good. Sometimes, focusing on our gaps is motivating. Sometimes, it’s fuel for self-flagellation. If focusing on the gap isn’t working, maybe the move is to focus on how far I've come.

And this is the concept of the gain. The idea of the gain is to compare our current selves not to where we want to be, but to where we were in the past. My past self felt very uncomfortable in space. My past self was constantly fidgeting with her clothes because they didn't fit well. My past self hated wearing anything that wasn't elasticized. My past self honestly just felt really gross. I don't feel any of those things anymore. It turns out, I didn't need to reach my goal weight to feel better in my body. I feel that way 15 pounds away from my goal weight. (Honestly, I felt that way 25 pounds away from my goal weight, and maybe even a bit further away than that. Feeling “not gross” actually took just a little bit of self-care and focus on my health, not an entire overhaul with some 61-pounds-down-Hollywood-makeover-reveal. Weird. Shocking.)

When assessing the gain, the data is the same, but my mood has changed significantly. My mood goes from self-flagellation to problem-solving. My mood goes from abstract emotional swamplands to data-driven paths forward. And nothing had to change except how I was thinking about the situation.

Now, am I going to keep this goal for 2026? Maybe, but I think I might zhuzh it a little bit. I might go for body recomposition rather than a single number on the scale. I don't actually need to decide that right yet. Right now, I can just appreciate the gain that I made in 2025. I feel healthier. I feel less insecure. I'm just plain happier. There is no benefit in focusing on the gap and robbing myself of those realizations.

As you're closing out 2025, what resolutions did you make at the beginning of the year? Of course, you'll see your gaps. Being raised in academic medicine means we focus on the gaps. But shift your focus a little bit and look at your gains. Where are you now compared to January 2025? What can you thank your past self for that your current self is reaping the benefits of? Where can you give yourself a break? And where can you be proud?

I'd love to hear what you come up with.