The Paradox of Goals
Photo by Courtney Lindberg Photography
2025 has launched in an intense way for me. You can read more about that here and here. If you aren't part of my Discover Live Trust Your Truth community, I invite you to join me. It's a space where we dive deep into life and being human (aka the craft of coaching).
Thankfully, life feels a bit more settled now, and I am profoundly grateful for my health, home, and family being safe amidst the fires.
Today I'm leading the first day of Reclaiming Your Truth, and in two weeks, Launch 2025: Elevate Your Practice and Awaken Your Potential begins with a sold-out group of twelve coaches. This program helps participants refine their craft, deepen their presence, enhance their enrollment, and bring their full selves to the work—making them more effective and impactful leaders.
As I prepare for both of these events, my heart and mind are on the subject of goals. I imagine they are for you, too.
This is the season where we're invited to think of the clean slate before us. How do we want to fill it? What do we want to create?
You're probably leading coaching sessions on this topic with your clients.
I know I used to do this all the time. We'd start with: What do you want to create? And then that became the map for the work.
But what if there's a deeper way to show up for yourself—and in your coaching?
So often, goals are set from unconscious conditioning, driven by a belief that achieving them will bring us what we're seeking: safety, success, worthiness, or love. But what if there's something deeper beneath it all?
What if every goal is ultimately about finding peace—a quiet mind, free from the constant noise of judgment, worry, or striving?
I had a glimpse of this last year while working with a health coach to support my body during perimenopause. Through our work, I unexpectedly reached a weight I never thought possible for myself. And when I did, all my inner angst around my body quieted. The mental chatter about food, exercise, fitting in, and failure disappeared. I experienced what I can only describe as freedom—a peaceful mind.
But here's the thing: it didn't last.
Like all goals, once I reached it, the thoughts eventually crept back. The scale became a source of fixation again, and my mind convinced me that returning to that “magic number” was the solution—that's where peace would be found.
As I navigate new health challenges, my relationship with my body, food, and exercise continues to evolve. And while the scale is creeping up, so too is the noise in my head.
But I know the truth now: peace isn't found in a number. It's found in the present. In the ability to meet life as it is, not as we think it should be.
This is the paradox of goals: we believe reaching them will fix something, calm something, or prove something. But what if nothing is broken? What if the discomfort we resist is simply part of the human experience, inviting us deeper into presence?
When we stop chasing and start meeting ourselves where we are, we uncover a deeper peace. Not one tied to conditions or achievements, but the peace that has always been here, waiting for us to notice.
So as you consider this year, I invite you to explore: What if your only goal is to meet life as it is? To use your work, relationships, and challenges as a spiritual practice—bringing you home to the riches of the present moment.
Because when you come home, you see the truth: nothing outside of you can give you what you don't already have within.
This doesn't mean you stop creating. Quite the opposite. When you drop the need to “want,” you clear space for Life to flow through you. Creativity, purpose, and guidance arise naturally—not from striving or forcing, but from surrender.
For me, this has looked like saying yes to a book and a podcast. These aren't “goals” I set; they emerged as inner guidance, and I chose to follow. It feels fundamentally different from chasing an external outcome, trying to fill some perceived hole inside.
As you step into this new year, marinate on: What if deep rest and relaxation is really what's under the goal you're after?
For that is already here—when we are courageous enough to turn toward our discomfort, fear, and angst.
Beneath every goal, every desire, lies the invitation to simply be.
May this year bring you home to yourself again and again.
With loving,
Amber
